I’m still working on obtaining my proof of citizenship so I can obtain a passport.
My birth certificate is not sufficient due to being born after a certain year.
I need to provide evidence that one of my parents was an Australian citizen or resident (I think) when I was born here or my own proof of citizenship.
As I don’t speak to either of my parents I need to provide the latter.
I sent off my application for proof of citizenship on the fifteenth of this month.
On the fifteenth I contacted the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to find out if they had received it.
They said they hadn’t yet.
When I called on the twentieth to check, they confirmed they had and that it had been rejected as I didn’t supply enough information.
Whilst talking to the person I was speaking to initially, I also found out that I didn’t have to select the option I did (evidence that I had been in Australia for ten years since my birth), despite being told previously by other representatives at Immigration that I had to do that.
After my call was escalated I was advised to resubmit my application when it was returned to me, change the option I selected to receiving citizenship through birth and include a letter advising that I don’t speak to either of my parents and Immigration would confirm that the parent born in Australia (as one came here when they were very young) was indeed born in Australia which would allow me to receive proof of citizenship.
However, as that parent was born in Victoria, I was told I first have to submit an application for their birth certificate with Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria, be rejected, then also include the letter of rejection with my application as BDM Victoria won’t assist Immigration unless Immigration has evidence that someone has attempted to obtain the birth certificate of a person born there first.
When I got home there was a parcel collection card for me.
I asked Anna to collect it for me on the twenty-first as I was unable to.
She tried but the local post-office said they hadn’t received it yet.
She tried again on the twenty-second. They said the same thing.
They advised her they would call me back about it.
They didn’t.
I contacted Australia Post on the twenty-seventh as (using the tracking number I was provided with) the delivery status of the parcel was still set to “In transit”.
I was told that it had been taken to their delivery centre in Alexandria with no explanation as to why.
I was then told that I couldn’t escalate it and that only the sender could.
I tried contacting Immigration afterwards but they were closed for a public holiday (due to being in the ACT).
I contacted the office of my local MP and spoke to a person there.
They contacted Australia Post and clarified that my parcel had been sent to my local post office.
They also advised that only I could collect it due to it being sent as registered post (despite the collection card specifying otherwise).
They said they would contact Immigration on the twenty-eighth about seeing if the process for my obtaining proof of citizenship could be expedited, then call me back.
I haven’t heard back.
On the twenty-eighth I went to my local post-office in the morning to collect my parcel.
I asked them why instead of telling Anna that I had to collect it they told her that they didn’t have it but they didn’t have an answer.
It’s probably an unfair question.
I sent an application for the birth certificate of my Victorian-born parent on the twenty-seventh so at least that is taken care of (for the time being), but right now I’m feeling rather disappointed with the process.
It started a few months ago and it’s still going.
It’s ridiculous, but at least it should be over soon enough.
The time it took to write five-hundred words: 28:56:02
Fairly slow.
I’ll be faster for the next one.
I went over the word limit as well, but it was hard to compress down easily.
Stupidity Hole 