80 per cent increase in Australian citizenship applications approved

Catching up on their backlog:

The number of migrants becoming Australian citizens is continuing to rise.

In 2018-19, there was an 80 per cent increase in citizenship applications approved compared to the previous financial year.

More than 145,000 migrants had their citizenship by conferral applications approved, up from 81,000 in 2017-18.

Meanwhile the Government has also halved the waiting time between an applicant attending a citizenship interview and the finalisation of their application.

According to Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs David Coleman the increase has been attributed to encouraging online lodgements and increasing the efficiency of citizenship processing.

“We have invested $9 million into our systems and staff, established a task force to focus on complex cases, and increased the number of citizenship appointments available for
applicants to attend interviews and sit the citizenship test,” said Mr Coleman.

“This investment is having a significant impact and I am confident we will see further improvements over the next 12 months.”

Source: 80 per cent increase in Australian citizenship applications approved