Commonwealth Citizenship
Under United Kingdom law, Australians are Commonwealth citizens and hence are entitled to certain rights in the UK:
- access to the UK Working Holiday visa program
- for those with a UK-born grandparent, access to the UK Ancestry Entry Clearance
- for those born before 1983 who have a UK-born mother or are women who were married before 1 January 1983 to a man with the right of abode in the UK, the right of abode (those born before 1983, whether Commonwealth citizens or not, with a UK-born father are generally British citizens by descent)
- for those living the UK, the right to vote and stand for public office there.
Australian citizens also have the freedom to live and work in New Zealand under the Trans-Tasman Travel Arrangement.
Read more about this topic: Australian Nationality Law
Famous quotes containing the words commonwealth and/or citizenship:
“This little world, this little state, this little commonwealth of our own....”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“I would wish that the women of our country could embrace ... [the responsibilities] of citizenship as peculiarly their own. If they could apply their higher sense of service and responsibility, their freshness of enthusiasm, their capacity for organization to this problem, it would become, as it should become, an issue of profound patriotism. The whole plane of political life would be lifted.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)