Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have heard from many constituents in my electorate about this issue. Some of their stories are about long delays in processing times for all sorts of applications. As I am sure do my colleagues on both sides of the House, we get constituents coming in to the office trying to make sense of the long delays there seem to be when it comes to this process of citizenship application with the testing, checking and then conferral.

A constituent of mine who has applied for citizenship of our great country came to my office last year. He had lodged his application in September of the previous year—2015. He had not heard anything from the department, so he came in to see me after I was elected to try to work out what was going on and what was going wrong. When he lodged the application the estimated processing time frame for an application was 80 days, but there he was an entire year later no closer to having a decision than when he made that application. These delays caused undue stress and concern to him and his family. As this constituent had had limited interaction with the government, he did not want to stir the pot by making any inquiries or making too much of a deal about it, but he pleaded with me to assist, which we did. He is a fine member of the community, holding down a full-time job and with good references. When you sit down with one of your constituents you can just tell sometimes, 'This is a good man who wants to be a citizen of our country.' He has been through the proper application processes, but there has been this interminable wait that has continued. He did not want to make too much drama about it, but he did the right thing in coming to see us. That is our job, but we are getting so many of these people who are not being responded to in anywhere near the time lines that have been laid out.

These uncertainties and delays have continued. He has been unable to travel to visit sick family overseas whilst he is waiting for this decision to be made on various applications. It has been over a number of years now. Eventually at the urging of his local church he came to my office seeking an update. We followed up with the department and the minister, and since then he has been able to sit a citizenship test. As I said, it is our job and we are happy to do it, but it should not take intervention from a federal electorate office to make these things happen

Let me be clear: I am not disparaging the staff of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection at all. They are doing their job and they are doing a fine job, but it seems that there are things that the government could be doing to improve the situation. It makes you wonder why there are such lengthy delays. It is outrageous that people who want to become citizens have to wait much longer than the period of time they are told they will. If there is a resourcing problem, fix it so that people can be processed. As the member for Parramatta said, it is in our interests to not only stick to what we say we are going to do but also do it in an expedient way so that people who passionately want to be Australian citizens can do that. If there is someone who should be taken out off the queue and looked at more carefully, we can do that as well.

I have said to the minister for citizenship that I am happy to help with the backlog. There is a huge backlog.

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