Working Life Residence (WLR) 106-06030000

Description

Australian Citizenship as proof of residence

There are two dates on an Australian Citizenship Certificate:

• the date their application was successful. This date can be used to verify residence periods
• the date the customer took the oath of allegiance is the date of grant of citizenship. This is the date to code on the RSLEG screen

For citizenship granted:

• before 1 September 1973, a person required 5 years residence immediately before the date of grant
• between 1 September 1973 and 25 October 1984, a person required 3 years residence immediately before the date of grant
• between 25 October 1984 and 1 July 2007, a person required 2 years residence immediately before the date of grant
• after 1 July 2007, a person requires 12 months permanent residence out of a minimum 4 years residence immediately before the date of grant

Note: check if the customer left Australia to reside overseas at any time following the grant of Australian citizenship and ensure that is reflected on the CRES screen.

Certificate of Residence Status

A customer may have been issued a Certificate of Residence Status:

• the Date of Grant of permanent residence is shown on this certificate
• code CRES with this date
• DOC the record with ‘Date of First Arrival (DOFA) has been verified from Certificate of Residence status #XXXXXX (Certificate number is located in the top right hand corner of the document)

Note: check if the customer left Australia to reside overseas at any time following this date and ensure that is reflected on the CRES screen.

Old Passport

An old passport may have Entry Stamps into Australia:

• Check that the date shown in the passport is a date on the AUS027 or liaison and that no other stamps show the customer leaving the country within 2 years of entry
• Code the CRES screen with this date and doc the record stating ‘DOFA verified from passport stamp’.

Note: check if the customer left Australia to reside at any time following this date and ensure that is reflected on the CRES screen.

Description

Manual calculation of Australian Working Life Residence (AWLR)

• Sometimes AWLR will need to be manually calculated. For example, where the customer uses their late partner's AWLR
• Firstly, work out where the AWLR begins and ends (16th birthday and Age Pension age (or date of death if earlier)). AWLR must be between these 2 dates
• Verify the late partner's date of arrival in Australia, if applicable
• Verify what periods they were residing in Australia
• Calculate each period of residence as years, months and days. Make sure each period falls between the 16th birthday and Age Pension age (or date of death if earlier)
  • Multiply the number of full years by 12 to convert into the number of months
  • Add this to the number of months
  • Add the days together. When adding days, 30 days equals 1 month, so add any additional months from this calculation to the total number of months. An extra month is added to the total for the odd days (including zero days)
• Note: if multiple periods of residence, add all the years together, then all the months together and then all the days together.
• The total months result is the AWLR

Example of AWLR calculation

A person has the following periods of Australian residence:

• 2 years, 4 months and 23 days
• 6 years, 2 months, 17 days, and
• 1 year, 4 months, 20 days

The years are added together to total 9 years, which, when multiplied by12, equals 108 months.

The months are added together to total 10 months.

The days are added together to total 60 days. This equals 30 days + 30 days + 0 days remaining, which equals 3 months (2 whole months of working life residence + 1 month). The extra month is added once only, after totalling all working life residence.

Total WLR = 108 + 10 + 3 = 121 months.