Becoming an Australain citizen


Personally, I think it is a privilege to be an Australian citizen, either by birth or by choice. There are several ways of becoming Australian citizen. One of the most common one among migrants is by "conferral".

You are eligible for Australian citizenship by conferral if you:
  •  Legally live here in Australia for at least 4 years (on whatever visa)
  • Have been a Permanent Residence and live in Australia at least 1 year after your permanent residency (on whatever Permanent Residence visa subclass)
It is important that you know how to calculate the residency period in Australia. Everytime you travel out of Australia, you cannot count those days toward your residency. 

If your child is under 16, your child can be a secondary applicant at no cost. There are greater benefits of become Australian citizen, especially for your child education.

Apart from any social benefits from Centrelink (I won't elaborate here), your child will have access to a FREE public education until year 12. Your child will have access to HECS and VETHELP if she/he decided to continue his/her education at higher level.

Many parents have decided to become Australian citizens, simply for their child's education.

In order to become an Australian citizen by conferral, the applicant needs to sit for the Australian citizenship test. It is 20 multiple choice questions. You need to get at least 15 of them correctly. You have 45 minutes to sit for the test. It is a computerized test, therefore, you will get your results immediately. You are allowed to take the test several times in one day, provided that the officer at the centre is available. It is quite obvious that the officer is quite flexible with the test.

As lots of countries now allow the dual citizenship. I personally encourage everyone to take up Australian citizenship. There are lots of benefits that you can access if you are an Australian citizen. Another great things of being an Australian citizen is that, there are lots of countries in the CommonWealth that you could travel to without having a visa or easily apply for "a visa on arrival".

As an Australian citizen, you could also live permanently in New Zealand as it is part of agreement between our 2 governments.

As you can see there are great benefits to call Australia home and become part of the country; be Australian citizen. I strongly suggest everyone look into this option seriously as the process of becoming Australian citizen is quite easy and straightforward.

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