[cohenM0522]

Hi everyone,

I just applied for citizenship in early July. In the ImmiAccount application home screen, the application status is 'Received'. Will the status value change to 'Initial assessment' or 'Further assessment', before or after the applicant receives the citizenship test and interview invitation? Also, will the government send citizenship test and interview invitation by post or by email or both? Many thanks.

Cheers,
Matt

 

[cohenM0522]

The status stays on received even when you get an email invitation for your citizenship test. The only thing that gets added is citizenship appointment tab. I am yet to give my test so not sure what the status changes to post the test.

Thank you so much for your info.

 

[cohenM0522]

Anyone who applied from Brisbane in 2022? Has anyone received the appointment letter? It seems this year it takes longer to process the applications, compared with last year.

 

[cohenM0522]

I applied on 26th April 2022 and no update yet, application still in Received status. Did your application status change after the first contact ?

Are you in Adelaide, if yes which Council ?

On MyImmiTracker.com, I did see a person who applied on 27 June 2022 in Adelaide received the appointment letter on 1 Sept. I reckon you'll get one soon.
Citizenship Processing Tracker (myimmitracker.com)

 

[cohenM0522]

Thanks for sharing, it is a great tracker

I am not sure why they pick random files. I can see some people who applied in June and July have gone through tests as well

I'm not sure about that either. I thought once the applicants provide all the required documents, the case officers will stick to the standard procedures and go through the review and background check.

 

[cohenM0522]

Does anyone know why all the other states are moving faster with their applications except Victoria, its so ridiculous. thank you

Some people said that Vic has a huge backlog due to the long COVID lockdown but it seems to me they're progressing the review this year.

 

[cohenM0522]

Thank you Cohen, I hope so, but looking at the immitracker nothing has been moved or touched since last year. very very slow progress comparing to the other states

I know. It's frustrating, isn't it?

One way to know more about the information related to citizenship application is the Right to Know website,set up under the Freedom of Information Act. You can browse a lot of requests like this (Count of people invited for Citizenship ceremony in June & July 2022 from Wyndham Council - VIC - a Freedom of Information request to Department of Home Affairs - Right to Know). However, to make a request to the Department of Home Affairs, there must be some criteria and you have to pay.

There is another source of information related to how the government process citizenship applications. There is a report on the efficiency of the processing of citizenship applications, which was submitted by the Australian National Audit Office to Parliament in 2019. (Full report is here: Efficiency of the Processing of Applications for Citizenship by Conferral | Australian National Audit Office (anao.gov.au)). Don't know whether there are any changes, but we may know a bit about how the Department of Home Affairs processes the citizenship applications, and why it's so slow compared with the past.

They introduced 'integrity screening' under the Liberal-National coalition government. As far as we know, there is a 'Citizenship Case Prioritisation Tool', which aims to identify any risk 'flags' that needed to be looked into. In addition to police checks, there is also a Movement Alert List check, but it's mainly a list of people the government identified as 'risk' to the country because they have serious criminal records, debts owed to the government and other problems. So they need to jump through more hoops than before. The audit report found that there are non-complex cases but Home Affairs simply unreasonably delay the processing. After all, the checks are pretty much automated, and it shouldn't be a valid reason to slow things down.

I guess most likely it's because they are short-staffed after COVID but still have a lot of cases to process (pretty much the same everywhere in Australia). Vic is more populated than other states such as WA so I'm not surprised by the delay.

Hope you'll get the invite soon. Fingers crossed!

 

[cohenM0522]

If I take the test on the date that they have given and everything is approved and I get the ceremony date in next few months but I want to delay the citizenship ceremony till next year January.

Is it possible to do so as I have plan to go overseas in December.

I guess you can. They just want to make sure you're in Australia when you're invited to attend the ceremony. That's what they said:

"Let us know if you need to travel outside Australia while your application is being processed or while you are waiting for your ceremony.
In most cases, we cannot approve your application while you are outside Australia. You must also make the Australian Citizenship pledge within 12 months of your application being approved, or the approval may be cancelled."

 

[cohenM0522]

Hey guys, hopefully someone can answer my question as I'm confused about the process.

As of now in early 2023, after you apply for citizenship, how long/what is the timeline from application date to when you have your interview and sit the citizenship test? Is it relatively quick or are we talking a wait time upwards of a few months?

Thanks.

It really depends on which city you live in. I live in the Brisbane City Council area and here is my timeline:

Application lodged on: 1 July 2022
Appointment letter received on: 14 Nov 2022
Citizenship test and interview: 16 Nov 2022
Approval date: 18 Jan 2023
*The officer required me to apply for police clearance from my home country, which took time and therefore my application wasn't approved until the certificate was sent to the DHA office in Brisbane.

You may go to this website and look up the data.

MyImmiTracker

Welcome to community immigration lifecycle and tracking web-app

myimmitracker.com

 

[cohenM0522]

Does anyone whose applications have been approved receive any invitation letter to any citizenship ceremonies in the Brisbane City Council area in 2023? I'm just curious.