Do you want to be exempted from sitting the Australian citizenship test? There is only one way.
You will be eligible to apply to become an Australian citizen if certain requirements have been met. Australian citizenship laws provide for people to make an application to the Minister to become Australian citizens. The Minister has the power to either approve or refuse to approve a person from becoming an Australian citizen. The Minister, through his delegates, must not approve a person to become an Australian citizen unless certain criteria under citizenship laws have been met. Take section 21(2) of the Australian Citizenship Act. This section provides for general eligibility that requires a person to satisfy the following requirements:
- Person must understands the nature of the application
- Possess basic knowledge of English language
- Has adequate knowledge of Australia and of responsibilities and privileges of Australian citizenship
It does not stop there. Section 21(2A) of the Act provides that the above requirements can be considered met if the person has sat and successfully completed the citizenship test. The test is designed to assess whether a person understands the nature of the application they are making, whether they have an adequate knowledge of Australia and the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship, and a basic knowledge of the English language.
Luckily, Australian citizenship laws do provide for some leniency. Section 21(3) of the Act sets out requirements for a person who has a permanent or enduring physical or mental incapacity. You will have to provide evidence, from a qualified medical practitioner to support your claim that you are not capable of understanding the application or demonstrate basic knowledge of English language or demonstrate adequate knowledge of Australia and responsibilities and privileges of Australian citizenship.
It can be very difficult to prove permanent or enduring physical or mental incapacity. The word enduring is defined to mean lasting over a period of time. This means that a temporary physical or mental condition does not meet the requirement. The Department expects that people claiming a permanent or enduring physical or mental incapacity would have been seeing a specialist on a regular basis. To make the requirement even harder, Departmental Policy provides:
To qualify, incapacity must be either permanent, or sufficiently long-term as to be enduring. An enduring incapacity is one for which there cannot be a predicted recovery, or where if there is, it is long-term and it would be unreasonable to expect the person to recover before becoming eligible for Australian citizenship. Examples may include a person suffering from long-term depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, or where a person has suffered a stroke.
