Citizenship wait growing

WAIT times for Australian citizenship have blown out by several months, with a rise in applications and stricter security checks being blamed.

The average time from lodging an application to becoming a citizen has stretched from 12 months in March 2016 out to 16 months this financial year. Home Affairs officer Luke Mansfield said several factors were behind the delay.

“One is that the department has increased the integrity screening and checking processes from a national security and criminality risk perspective,” Mr Mansfield said.