Agepati and Minister for Home Affairs (Citizenship)

This matter concerned an application for Australian citizenship by conferral by Mr Agepati, an Indian national. The Minister for Home Affairs had refused Mr Agepati's application, and he sought review of that decision before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The core of the dispute revolved around whether Mr Agepati was prevented from becoming a citizen due to being subject to an adjourned undertaking under section 75 of the *Sentencing Act 1991* (Vic) at the time of his application.

The Tribunal was required to determine whether the Minister's delegate was prohibited from approving Mr Agepati's citizenship application under section 24(6)(g) of the *Australian Citizenship Act 2007* (Cth) due to the existence of the adjourned undertaking. This section precludes the Minister from granting citizenship to a person who is subject to certain legal proceedings or undertakings. A further issue was whether the Tribunal had the power to postpone consideration of the application until after the expiry of the undertaking.

The Tribunal reasoned that section 24(6)(g) of the Act prohibits the Minister from approving citizenship while a person is subject to an adjourned undertaking with conditions relating to behaviour, even if no conviction has been recorded. The Tribunal noted that the existence of such undertakings had been consistently interpreted by previous decisions to fall within the scope of this prohibition. Furthermore, relying on the decision in *Lesi v Administrative Appeals Tribunal*, the Tribunal determined it did not have the power to postpone consideration of the application merely because the statutory bar would expire in the future.

Consequently, the Tribunal affirmed the delegate's decision to refuse Mr Agepati's application for Australian citizenship. The Tribunal acknowledged the distress this decision might cause and encouraged Mr Agepati to reapply for citizenship after his undertaking expired on 2 December 2019, as nothing in the determination precluded him from making a further application.