strewth

I have 2 small kids who are australian citizens by descent. They were born outside Australia but their Dad (my husband) is Australian.
We currently live outside Australia but are returning early next year to live there indefinitely. In 2003 I was granted a Permanent Residents Visa which expired last year. I now have a Residents return visa which is valid for another 5 years.
When we move to Australia I would like to avail of citizenship. My query is, do I have to wait 2 years and apply then or does my family situation entitle me to automatic citizenship?
Any info greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
S

ColonialCousin

AFAIK you still have to wait for the requisite 4 years in Australia / 1 year as a Permanent Resident, before you become eligible for the citizenship.

There might be a clause available under which you might be eligible to count time spent outside Australia, while married to an Australian Citizen as time spent in Australia, if your husband was sent overseas while employed with an Australian company.

I say this from memory ofcourse, which at 11:25 PM is a bit hazy. I'm sure one of the many experts will chime in with their inputs soon.

Dorothy

www.citizenship.gov.au has a residency calculator which will tell you when you're eligible.

lonndongeek

Have a chat with a migration agent. There are a couple of 'ministerial discretions' that may (or may not) apply to you and could get you citizenship faster.

Have a look at http://www.citizenship.gov.au/applyi...esi_variation/.

Cheers

Steve

JAJ

The majority of migration agents never deal with citizenship cases.

Note the discretion:

"If you have spent time outside Australia as a permanent resident with your spouse or partner, or are the surviving spouse or partner of an Australian citizen and have a close and continuing association with Australia, then that period of time may be treated as time spent in Australia."

the big burp

for a spouse of an australian citizen to get time outside australia counted as time in australia, what sort of reasons would count as close connections to australia? would you have to provide a number of different reasons or would one be sufficient? (obviously the more 'connections' the better, but wanting to know what is practically reasonable given the mentaliy of case officers) just thinking of this option to speed up the citizenship process for my hubby if possible...

lonndongeek

The following advice is worth the amount that you've paid for it...

My reading of the ministerial discretion is that time spent outside Australia can be counted if you meet either of the following:

1. "If you have spent time outside Australia as a permanent resident with your spouse or partner". i.e. the visa holder has a permanent visa, and is living with the sponsor outside of Australia

-OR-

2. " are the surviving spouse or partner of an Australian citizen and have a close and continuing association with Australia" as you're posting on behalf of your visa holding spouse, I'm guessing that this is not applicable

My understanding is that the visa holder only needs to show a close and continuing association with Australia if their partner is dead.

If you want to go down this path, you're probably best off paying for advice from somebody who knows what they're talking about, not listening to a random numpty posting on an Internet forum.

Cheers

Steve

JAJ

Your reading is wrong. Section 22(9) of the Act reads:

(9) If the person is the spouse, de facto partner or surviving spouse or de facto partner of an Australian citizen at the time the person made the application, the Minister may treat a period as one in which the person was present in Australia as a permanent resident if:

(a) the person was a spouse or de facto partner of that Australian citizen during that period; and
(b) the person was not present in Australia during that period;
and
(c) the person was a permanent resident during that period; and
(d) the Minister is satisfied that the person had a close and continuing association with Australia during that period.

(10) In subsection (9):
surviving spouse or de facto partner of a person who has died means a person who was the person’s spouse or de facto partner immediately before the person died and who has not later become the spouse or de facto partner of another person.


Paying for advice is all very well, but from whom? Most agents/lawyers have no experience with section 22(9) cases.

JAJ

Australian citizen spouse and dependent children, that would be a good start. Apart from that, any ties you can think of. Including visits to Australia, other friends/relatives in Australia, etc.

It's not clear at this point how many close connections is needed. It is a subjective decision, of course, if refused you can appeal to the AAT.

Offshore DIAC offices (London, Berlin, etc) are dealing with a number of cases like this. If applying onshore, it might be worth sending the application to DIAC Dandenong office as they are the ones who deal with all offshore grant applications and the other DIAC offices in Australia will probably know nothing about this discretion.

Sebastian

Hi,

I applied for citizenship, and used the

Discretion.
"If you have spent time outside Australia as a permanent resident with your spouse or partner, or are the surviving spouse or partner of an Australian citizen and have a close and continuing association with Australia, then that period of time may be treated as time spent in Australia."

My citizenship is approved and I have ceremony on Apr 21st 2010 outside Australia at the Australiam Commision.

For close and continuing association with Australia I used the following Documents:

My OZ Joint Bank account with my Wife.
My OZ Property Document.
My OZ Mortgage document.
My OZ driving Licence.
Marriage certificate.
Children OZ passport copy with father name (My name)

Good Luck with your application.

Regards

Sebastian

jh1

My situation is slightly different:
I was permanent resident from 1987-1997
my wife and kids are oz (got married in 1990)
now we want to return to oz, what visa do I apply for? None seem to apply, citizenship may actually be easier if I read the above posts, something which seems odd

any suggestions?

Many thanks,
John

JAJ

Forget citizenship until you have your permanent resident status back. You've got two options - a resident return visa on "concessional" grounds or a new spouse visa.

Did you decide not to become a citizen back in 1989 or so when you became eligbible?

jh1

Thanks JAJ,
I simply did not think about citizenship at the time, too busy with work and small children. We also did not anticipate to stay away for this long. I should have done this, I guess things are always easy in hindsight...

Reading through the concessional requirements list, I think I should meet that. The only caveat could be state statement that one needs to demonstrate that these ties are of benefit to Australia. If a job offer can be seen as ' of benefit' to Australia then we should be ok here. My argument here would be that my profession is on the skilled profession list. (but I turned 46 a few months ago, which renders the skilled visa unusable for me). I guess I just have to hope that immigration agrees that my skills would be valuable.

Many thanks,
John

JAJ

Did you read:
http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Reside...Visa-Australia

jh1

Hi JAJ,
Thanks for the link, had not seen this one before, there are a few publications around this, but nothing is quite conclusive with regard to my situation.

Both the Malaysian and Singapore High Commissions publish something similar on their websites:
http://www.singapore.embassy.gov.au/...0checklist.pdf
and
http://www.australia.org.my/klpr/rrv_sup.html

However, the 'Benefit to Australia' clause is something that remains unclear to me. I am sure that the DIAC have internal guidance on this but there must also be some public statement on how this is intended to be used.

I can always get my wife to sponsor me, but that is a lengthy and cumbersome process as compared with the concessional RRV, this is why I prefer the latter.

John