July 1st
Today’s the day the law on Australian Citizenship by Descent changes. Today is the day I may, or may not, find I am eligible. The change in the law is misty, but seems to imply my age may no longer be a barrier to my applying for citizenship; all this on account of my being born before 1949 – the year Australian citizenship first came into existence – to an Australian mother who had already decamped from Australia some years before and worked hard to completely eradicate her Australian accent (they don’t have to know that).
I download the form. There are new stipulations about guarantors and endorsers of photographs, who have to belong to one in a list of ‘respectable’ professions such as lawyers, doctors, accountants and so on – always a problem for someone like me whose friends are artists, actors and other vagabonds. The photograph cannot be taken in one of those photo booths because the dimensions differ by something like 5 millimetres and the crown of the head – the crown of the head rather than the top of the hair – must be no more than x millimetres from the edge of the photo, and so on. Crikey.
July 7th
I get the photo done in Snappy Snaps (to my surprise they seem to have done this before), with some effort I find a university professor to endorse it, I gather together all my documents, originals only, I’m then told I’m supposed to send ‘certified copies’ of said originals verified by someone from the above list of respectable professions, in addition to the originals, which makes no sense to me so I just send copies endorsed by myself. I package the whole lot together and send it off Special Delivery, heart pounding because my whole life is in that envelope. And then I wait.
July 9th
Two days later I get a phone call from a nice young man from Australia House asking me some probing questions about my mother, whether she ever went back to live in her native country (no), how and when she became a British citizen (I don’t know) and so on. My mouth goes all dry as I answer the questions as vaguely as I can and he says he hopes to have it all sorted by my birthday.
My birthday? Why that’s barely a week away! And I was always told it would take up to six months!
July 11th
A Special Delivery package arrives, they’ve returned my original documents – that was quick – and along with them …
My certificate of Australian citizenship.
I am now an Australian citizen.
It’s hard to describe the feeling. After all these years of confusion, anxiety, frustration and downright despair, I am now a fully-fledged Australian, entitled to live there, work there, vote there (I’m not sure about that actually), buy property there, and I don’t even have to learn the words to ‘Advance Australia Fair’ or swear allegiance to John Howard.
Hallelujah.
