Getting an Australian passport

[Luna9]

I am looking for advice on how to get an Australian passport; DH is Australian, children have Australian passports. We live in the UK and all got British passports. I read once that I need to live there for a year in order to be eligible for one. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[QueenOfTheAndals]

You need to be an Australian citizen first. Are you? It's not clear from your post.

[sunbunnydownunder]

Pretty sure your husband would have to sponsor you on a spousal visa and you would have to live in Australia for a number of years, get citizenship and then apply for the passport.

[CatRen]

Hi Luna, you have to be a citizen first. You don't get one just because your spouse and children are citizens. You'd need to get your dh to sponsor you for permanent residence then over time (definitely more than 1 year!) apply for citizenship. Why do you want an Australian passport? You can travel here on a pretty cheap visa.

[OccamsRaiser]

Sadly not as easy as being married to an Australian (or living there for a year)

To get an Australian passport, you have to be either
a) an Australian citizen or
b) eligible to become one (and do so)... which means that you have a visa for permanent residency in Australia, have lived there for majority of the past 4 years and intend to live there permanently or maintain close connections. Or you were born to someone who lost their Australian citizen before 2002.

[alwayscrashinginthesamecar1]

My husband is Australian and I've lived in Australia since 2013, and I still don't have an Aussie passport. You have to live here for four years as a Permanent Resident before you can apply. My application has taken a year to process as there is currently a huge backlog in applications (caused by them trying and failing to change the eligibility criteria last in 2017). You then need to be interviewed and pass a citizenship test, after that you will be invited to a citizenship ceremony, currently the wait for that is another six months or so. Then you can apply for your passport. I sit my test in April and hope to get my citizenship on Australia Day 2019.

In contrast, my son got his Aussie passport without setting foot in the place as my husband was born in Oz.

[OccamsRaiser]

alwayscrashinginthesamecar1 We are in the same boat for my DH - his application has been lodged 8 months ago and still awaiting any sort of communication (much less a decision)... rather depressing to see that it's taking 22 months to process only 90% of applications.

I'm taking heart that you have a test date, so hopefully his shouldn't be too far away!

[alwayscrashinginthesamecar1]

@OccamsRaiser, is it 22 months now, bloody hell that's ridiculous! I applied on April 5th 2018 and got an email on December 20th saying that my test date is April 8th 2019. Sp check your Immi account, you can't be far behind me!

[chatwoo]

Eeeeek, is it nearly two years from start to end? I am eligible for citizenship soon and had naively hoped to knock it over quickly. But clearly not!!

[alwayscrashinginthesamecar1]

@chatwoo I'm afraid so, and the queue is getting longer every month. I'd advise getting your paperwork together and getting your application lodged as soon as you are eligible. I was eligible in Feb 2017 but didn't get round to it and then they tried to change the rules and nobody was allowed to even join the queue for about nine months, l hence the massive (and growing) backlog now. The whole debacle will have made my wait for Citizenship about two years longer than it should have. Its also cost a good friend over $20,000 as her daughter was unable to take out HECS loans for uni as she only had PR and not citizenship! SO if you can get it sorted out soon, you really should!

[roundthehorn]

Also once your citizenship has been granted you are not able to apply for a passport until your Citizenship Ceremony and can't leave Australia on your original passport without applying for a Resident Return Visa which is over $1000. The whole process from arriving on a 457 Skilled Migrant visa, through PR to citizenship took around 9 years. As the partner of an Australian you can go straight to the PR and apply for citizenship after 4 years.

[chatwoo]

@alwayscrashinginthesamecar1
Thank you, it's really helpful to hear this first hand! I was off work over Xmas, so have actually already populated my application and gathered the various bits of info needed.

My last hurdle us getting someone on the list of special jobs, to verify my identity and I'm going to speak very nicely to my dentist when I see her next week!

@roundthehorn that passport situation sounds like a bit of a catch-22

[alwayscrashinginthesamecar1]

Roundthehorn is correct about the Resident's Return visa, except it costs $360 each, or did when I looked it up a month ago.

Yes finding someone to verify your identity is almost as much fun as trying to remember everywhere you have travelled since you were eighteen!

[chatwoo]

@ alwayscrashing did you actually provide a full list of travels since age 18? I went back and used the same list that I had when I initially applied for my visa & updated it. But I haven't yet gone back as far as 18!! I thought the wording of that question was a bit odd, like they were expecting you to have lived in Australia since 18, with an occasion trip to another country

[alwayscrashinginthesamecar1]

No I didn't, I just made it up as best I could. There is no way on earth I can remember everywhere I've been in the last thirty years including dates! Apparently that's fine, although I think if you have travelled to any high risk countries they look at it more closely. I doubt if they are interested in what I got up to Inter-railing, or the exact dates I went to Club 18-30 to Benidorm back in the 80s ! . And yes the wording is odd. If you apply on paper rather than online they only ask you to go back ten years!

[chatwoo]

@alwayscrashing, thanks that is re-assuring. I will think back to see if I can roughly imagine where I was back in the hazy days of my late teens & early-20s... I can just about name the destinations but the years, not so much...! I think I'll take pot luck.

[Luna9]

Thank you very much. I can see it is not that straight forward and the process is similar to the one in the UK, perhaps more complicated. I don't need it at the moment but just in case we ever move there; I realised I need to live there first.

[alwayscrashinginthesamecar1]

@Luna9 On the upside, if you do want to move to Oz you don't actually need an Aussie passport. As your husband is Australian you should be able to move here on a spousal visa which means that you are entitled to Permanent Residency from the off. Then once you have lived here for four years you can apply for citizenship as described above. You still have to satisfy good character requirements, have a medical, supply a lot of paperwork and pay a fat visa fee in order to apply for residency, but its a lot easier and cheaper than having to get a skilled visa. Your children will be able to apply straight away for Australian passports by descent, which saves a whole world of trouble if you want to emigrate.

[FussyMcBudget]

@Luna9 as others have mentioned you'll need a PR visa first. Be aware the processing times on these have grown a lot the last few years and currently you could wait over 2 years for your PR visa to be granted from application. Check out Australian govt immigration site for current time frames.