NZ’rs with Aussie baby passport question

The law changed in 2001, so if you and your DH only have NZ passports and don't hold a special category visa then your DS is only entitled to an NZ passport regardless of where he was born.

Edited by Danda08

DH and I both have NZ passports. DD#1 was born in Australia and she had to get an Australian passport. But that might have been since we had been over there for over 2 yrs so were Australian residents.

After 2001 NZ'ers arrive in Aus on a Special Category Visa (SCV) only, NOT as a permanent resident. Essentially that means you can live, work and play as a permanent resident but WITHOUT the permanent resident title/status. However, after 2 years of being on the SCV you can apply for Permanent residency, and then 2 years after that you can apply for citizenship. Very long lengthy process.

We have been in Aus 5 years now and when DS was born we had been here for 3 years. Because we never applied for Permanent Residency DS DOES NOT get Aus citizenship automatically because we are still on a SCV. He has to go through the same process as what every other kiwi would have to do. Essentially he is Citizenship-less at birth.

So, after DS was born, we had to apply to NZ for Citizenship by Desent, and then get a NZ passport. The process for memory took about 3 weeks but I understand it can take up to 6 weeks depending on how busy the Passport office is. We sent his application for both to Sydney.

We had the same issues both kiwis living in oz, DD was born there but not entitled to an Oz passport back in 2008, so we had to apply for citizenship by descent at the same time as her nz passport which you can do both in Oz. Think the office was Sydney and yes it can take up to 6wks and whatever you do don't get any of the questions wrong or leave anything out, and they are fussy about passport photos so make sure your local shop that does it, knows how to do babies.

It became quite stressful for us as we had limited time to do this in as we were coming home for Xmas, but I kept ringing every few days and was very polite to the passport people and found someone who took pity on us and got them both within 3wks. They will not process them simultaneously only one after the other.

GL

I second the following up (ringing regularly) if you are applying for NZ Decent. DS' one was stuffed up which meant we had to fly on emergency passports... It should take no longer than 6 weeks.

Yep I also agree with the regular contact. I rang the Sydney office once a week to track how it was going and they were great in updating me. They get the Citizenship first then the application gets sent to the Passport Office. They are generally very helpful (I was also very polite too).