Last week, the acting Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs confirmed that the conferring of Australian citizenship will not be suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic, with online one-on-one ceremonies being trialled and expected to be rolled out shortly.

While the patriotic pomp and ceremony will be missing especially as the vast majority of Australian citizenship ceremonies are conducted by local government councils, this may be good news for the 85,000 or so people with approved Australian citizenship applications, but who are awaiting a ceremony.

The pledge of commitment as a citizen of the Commonwealth of Australia is the final statutory requirement under section 26 of the Citizenship Act 2007 (Cth) to become an Australia citizen by conferral. There are few exemptions to the pledge including those under the age of 16 or those who have a permanent and enduring physical or mental incapacity at the time of applying.

The day the person makes the pledge they become Australian citizens, and if they are not required, they will become Australian citizens the day they have been approved citizenship.

The reason to push forward with online Australian citizenship ceremonies appears primarily due to the need that a person giving the pledge is generally required to do so within 12 months from the date their citizenship application was approved. While cancelling Australian citizenship approval is discretionary if not done within the 12-month period, it is a situation best avoided in the first place. There are circumstances where cancellation will not occur if the pledge has not been made within that time period, however, the prescribed reasons for this do not include being precluded from the opportunity to give the pledge, even due to extraordinary matters such as the coronavirus pandemic. Only an administrative error or omission can be claimed for which the applicant needs to provide evidence.

Perhaps because of this, citizenship interviews which includes the citizenship test have been suspended until restrictions such as social distancing has been lifted.

It has been estimated that up to 750 people will be able to be conferred citizenship per day to maintain mopping up the backlog of Australian citizenship applications as processing was delayed when an attempt to increase the residency and English requirements failed in October 2017. These valiant efforts are likely the main driver as to why citizenship conferrals this financial year are already up 70 per cent over the 2018-19 financial year.