Watkins and Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs (Citizenship)

This matter concerned an application for review of a decision by the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs to refuse Ms Watkins' application for conferral of Australian citizenship. The Minister's decision was made under section 24 of the *Australian Citizenship Act 2007* (Cth) and did not refer to the statelessness eligibility ground. Ms Watkins applied to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal for a review of this decision, and subsequently sought an extension of time to lodge a further application for review.

The primary legal issue before the Tribunal was whether Ms Watkins was eligible to apply for a review of the Minister's decision, given that she was not a permanent resident at the time of the Minister's decision or at the time she initially applied for review. The Tribunal was required to determine the operative date for assessing permanent residency status for the purposes of section 52(2) of the *Citizenship Act*, which stipulates that a person cannot apply for review of a citizenship refusal unless they are a permanent resident, provided certain conditions are met.

The Tribunal reasoned that under section 52(2) of the *Citizenship Act*, a person must be a permanent resident at the time they apply for review of a citizenship refusal. Applying this principle, the Tribunal found that Ms Watkins was not a permanent resident on 23 December 2020, the date her permanent visa expired, nor was she a permanent resident when she lodged her initial application for review on 3 February 2021. Although Ms Watkins was subsequently granted a Resident Return (subclass 155) visa, which is a permanent visa, this occurred after the relevant dates for establishing eligibility to apply for review. The Tribunal noted that section 52(2) does not grant discretion to overlook this requirement.

Consequently, the Tribunal concluded that Ms Watkins could not validly apply for a review of the Minister's decision as she did not meet the permanent residency requirement at the time of her application for review. The Tribunal observed that there was no impediment to Ms Watkins making a new application for conferral of Australian citizenship, which would be determined on its merits if an extension of time were granted for that new application.