The Department of Immigration and Border Protection is having to deal with a huge backlog of citizenship applications after a freeze on processing which followed the announcement of now doomed citizenship changes unveiled on April 20th this year.
The Australian Citizenship Legislation Amendment (Strengthening the Requirements for Australian Citizenship and Other Measures) Bill 2017 was struck off the Senate’s notice paper after it failed to overcome a challenge mounted by the combined opposition of the Labor, Greens and the Nick Xenophon.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, while announcing the proposed changes on April 20th this year, also said all the applications filed after the announcement would be processed under the new law. While the proposed legislation was hanging fire, the number of citizenship applications awaiting processing has jumped from 81,000 on June 27 this year to nearly 120,000 on October 15.
A spokesperson for the DIBP confirmed to SBS Punjabi that there were 119,908 conferral applications for Australian Citizenship on hand.
After the citizenship bill's Senate debacle, Shadow Minister for Citizenship Tony Burke called for lifting the freeze on processing the citizenship applications immediately.
“It would be an extraordinary decision of the department if they don’t begin processing those applications immediately,” he told SBS Punjabi on Wednesday.
While the government plans to once again bring the citizenship law before the Parliament after making some changes and intends for it to take effect on 1 July 2018, it says the department would start processing all applications for citizenship filed before 1 July 2018 under the current law.
