With recent changes being brought in by the Australian government in terms of staff cut in the immigration department, the waiting period for garnering visa and Australian citizenship might increase. The main aspects of this change as stated by Mr. Mike Pezzullo, Department Secretary is:
  • The change in staff is made to overcome the under equipped units of counter terrorism.
  • He believes the waiting time period is affected more by the growing number of applications for visa.
  • Under this change about 335 staff employees have been shifted from the immigration department’s visa and citizenship area.
As per Mr. Pezzullo changes in the staff member of immigration department does not necessarily result in increase in waiting time period for the permanent migration visas along with citizenship and refugee visa. His view on the cutback is that rather than waiting time, ensuring counter-terrorism units are adept in handling in more imperative. He stated – “If people died as a result of a terrorist attack and there was an issue around our borders, I'd be deeply concerned about that. At a human level, you don't want anyone to wait for a government decision any longer than is absolutely necessary. If some folks have to wait a little bit longer then so be it”