Yoggit said [...common sense would be to apply for Oz citizenship way back when.]
That sounds as tho there was an easy solution to Stephen's issue back in the day. but that may not be so if my 1st hand experience is to go by- (quick disclosure - I was born over ditch and have worked here from 66 - in 75 some of the loony ideas of the Whitlam Gov told me to become an Aussie which I did.)
I have an older rellie who was born in UK and came to Oz as a child with her family as assisted migrant hitting freo in 51 As her life unfolded she never took time off from working, getting married, building houses, raising kids - never took the time to become an Aussie. Approx 12-13 years ago I started to help her discover, get her hands on and assemble all her "lifes evidence papers" - birth cert, arrival docs, marriage cert(change of name), Police check etc etc etc. Clutching all these papers I went with her into Canberra "shop-front office" of what was either Dept of Immi - or Home Affairs. Now then I was a trusting person who assumed that staff at a Gov Office counter were there to assist you in whatever the task was you were trying to progress - getting a licence for whatever. I kept records of our visits on HDD - forms she was given to fill in etc etc and we NEVER GOT ANYWHERE After some years we were told "Oh you need to do this on our www pages now - so I uploaded docs for her but we NEVER GOT ANYWHERE There has been a period of years after 2019 where older rellie gave up this quest for a while. In recent years I am assisting her again - this time with help from a Migration Agent who has cost a few $G's - but we NEVER GOT ANYWHERE I have emails from HA where they just lie through their teeth. Example - Oh the photo you submitted was poor quality - It was taken by pro's at a large Post Office where they were told what it was for and they took the trouble to snap older rel exactly how they wanted. There is a second lie HA uttered to me by email that is too complex to recount here but I went thru FOI and got papers that prove the Home Affairs lie.
so to wrap this - when you say [...common sense would be to apply for Oz citizenship way back when.]
