2017-10-23 22:21 The requirements to be an Australian citizen
Y (Kuma's owner)
I had been paying attention to the citizenship test and English ability test which were considered to be mandatory to people who wanted to be an Australian citizen.
I heard that the Australian government is planning to demand university-level English to applicants. I didn't know exactly how much score would be needed, for instance on IELTS, and looked for news and found that the government were considering to achieve a minimum level of "competent".
"Competent" was still a blurry image to me and I looked for the information again and found that it's level 6 or 6.5 score of IELTS because many Australian universities require a minimum overall IELTS score of 6 or 6.5. It's a bit high for people who come from non-English speaking countries.
Now I'm writing this blog in English and wondering how much score of writing category of IELTS I am able to get?
However, I heard the news that this proposal was rejected recently. I think I'm going to take the citizenship test in the future. The Japanese government doesn't allow to have dual citizenship, so if I got Australian citizenship, that means I will lose Japanese citizenship. Most Japanese who live in Australia keep Japanese citizenship for the reason that they cannot keep dual citizenship. If I could, I would like to keep both citizenship but if it's not allowed even in the future, I would choose Australian citizenship because my base of life is here, Australia.
I heard the news that Kazuo Ishiguro won the Nobel prize for literature. He was born in Japan and grew up in the United Kingdom. He said that he had to abandon Japanese citizenship by the reason I wrote above. People who abandoned Japanese citizenship are increasing for several reasons.
A few weeks ago, I was invited to my friends' home party. There, one of my friends gave me several Australia quizzes. It was a good opportunity to learn about Australia but on the other hand I realised that ironically Australian friends couldn't answer some of the questions.
I like quizzes and was curious about the citizenship test, therefore I bought the book literally titled "Australian Citizenship Test Practice Questions." Unfortunately, there are lots of political questions which I'm not good with. It seems not easy to get a high score without studying but I can understand it because it's the citizenship test, if it's too easy I would be surprised.
After ten years later, I wonder what kind of society we will have. So many people are moving beyond the borderline recently and the world seems to be greatly changing. I hope that everyone will have a peaceful life regardless of nationality.
I hope the Japanese government will change the regulation and will allow dual citizenship in the future.