Yesterday I was rummaging through a few cupboards where my wife Joan stored remnants of her many fabric projects and found a large plastic container with photos etc that I had not seen in many years. Amongst this treasure trove was an envelope of pages cut from expired passports and I was amazed to find one of our son Martin issued in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea in 1975 just prior to our final weeks in that country. Damn!
Click to enlarge
Back in 2011 Martin’s employer asked him for proof of citizenship. All he had was a birth certificate showing his birthdate and place in Papua New Guinea. The employer immediately suspended Martin without pay and at that stage Immigration considered him a possible illegal alien. My wife Joan would have known that Martin had had a passport and where the proof was filed, but I didn’t and a serious search of the house yielded nothing.....until yesterday. Convincing Immigration that Martin was indeed a citizen took months. And he eventually returned home to W.A. and stayed with me.
This would have been all the evidence I needed at the time to prove to Australian Immigration Martin was an Australian citizen.
If the story is of interest, part of it can be found here.
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