This week I attended my Australian citizenship ceremony. I am now officially Australian.
It's a very weird concept.
When I'm here I refer to England as home.
In England, Australia is home.
I wasn't born here but I now have exactly the same rights as someone who was.
If I have a child, no matter who the father is or what country it is born in, it will also be Australian.
The mayor at the ceremony kept saying how proud he was that we 'chose' Australia. But I didn't look at a map and decide Australia was it. Yet since I've been here there have been so many times that I've thought, 'that works for me'. And a 6 week trip turned into an 8 month trip, which became a year and went from there to temporary residency.
At that stage I had to collect concrete evidence and documents to prove a relationship that by definition is subjective and mostly intangible.
Three years on, I lodged my citizenship application.
Interestingly, once the Department of Immigration have accepted and approved your application, you are not a citizen until the ceremony.
You are not a citizen until you have said:
From this time forward,
I pledge my loyalty to Australia and it's people,
Whose democratic beliefs I share,
Whose rights and liberties I respect, and
Whose laws I will obey and uphold.
Five years and nine days since I first landed at Kingsford-Smith...
HELLO AUSTRALIA!
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