Australian Citizenship is what you can apply for when you have lived in Australia for at least 4 years lawfully and have spent 12 months minimum as a permanent resident in Australia.
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But from the 1st of July 2018, the Australian Citizenship Regulation 2016 will be amended by a legislative instrument which will remove concessional fees for applicants receiving Centrelink/welfare payments who are:
- Migrant Pensioners
- Migrant Veterans
- Migrant Widows
- Migrant Pension Concession card holders
The change mainly affects the pensioner card holders who receive certain Centrelink payments such as the disability support, parenting payments, Newstart etc.
This means that people who fit this welfare criteria will no longer be allowed to pay a discounted amount for residency because of their disadvantaged situation, but will instead be required to pay full price if applying for Australian Citizenship.
This is a steep change in price with the disadvantaged applicants on Centrelink payments only previously being required to pay $20 -$40, but with this new change they will now be required to pay the regular full price of $285 when applying for Australian citizenship.
A speaker for the Australian Government Department of Home Affairs said that only 3% of applicants applying for citizenship through the entrance test paid a concession fee in the past 12 months. The speaker also stated that Australia’s Citizenship fees remain “internationally competitive” and are among the lowest in the OECD nations.
There has been a backlash to the government with many unhappy speakers including the Federation of Ethnic Communities and Nick Mckims, a senator in the Greens parliament party.
Greens senator, Nick Mckim plans to move a disallowance motion when the parliament meets again next week and has requested assistance and support in this venture from the Labour Government an crossbench,
If this disallowance motion succeeds then the change planned for July 1st 2018 will be overturned and remain the way it originally was with the pensioners paying the same amount as they did before of $20-$40 on application.
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