Pasifika Communities of Townsville PCT Inc

At this stage Festival is still going ahead, rain or shine. Please feel free to come down and pick up food plates from your any community stalls (take away availabile)
Fiji
Tonga
Cook island
Indonesia
TI
Niue
Samoa

Arts and crafts

Our supporting vendors for our Cultural event.

Please share if you know anyone that can benefit ...

Celebrating Multicultural Food Festival at the Strand Oval. Feel free to share away, tag your friends & families. 😁

Meet and greet your Toa Samoa today at the Sports Reserve, North Ward at 6pm.

Update. Flight delayed. Toa Samoa will arrive at 8:40PM tonight.

Top of the morning Pasifika. Toa Samoa departing Brisbane this afternoon at 5:40PM. Arriving in Townsville at 7:30PM. Please join us at the airport to welcome Toa Samoa.

OFFICIAL

Kia Orana and Warm Pacific Greetings,



Thank you for your continued excellent work in the community to date as we head into a new month around the corner.



I want to acknowledge Vicky Rose from Nerang Neighbourhood Centre and OzKiwi and their supporters for the great work providing information sessions regarding the New Zealand pathway to Australian citizenship. These sessions have been extremely well attended and our citizenship section want to encourage applicants to lodge electronically in the first instance, as paper applications take longer and are not prioritised.



I have been receiving quite a few enquiries and wanted to share the following information in the hope it alleviates concerns.

Does this arrangement also extend to family members of Special Category Visa holders who are not New Zealand citizens?

· The new direct pathway to citizenship applies only to Special Category Visa holders. The Special Category Visa is a temporary visa introduced specifically for New Zealand citizens in 1994, allowing them to live and work in Australia lawfully, subject to meeting health and character requirements.
· Family members who are not New Zealand citizens will not be Special Category Visa holders and the new provisions around the backdating of permanent residence will not apply to them.
· This cohort will continue to be eligible to apply for citizenship by conferral under existing arrangements, and will need to meet certain criteria. This includes holding a permanent visa for 12 months as part of the general residence requirements under the Australian Citizenship Act 2007.


Will temporary visa holders who returned to New Zealand through COVID have to wait longer to be eligible for Australian citizenship?

· To satisfy the residence requirements for Australian citizenship a person’s total period of overseas absence must be less than 12 months in the past 4 years, and as a permanent resident no more than 90 days in the past 12 months.
· This general residence requirement is the same for everyone applying for citizenship, and is intended to show that a person has an ongoing commitment to Australia.


I hope the above information is helpful and thank you all for your enquiries.

Lave ‘Iloa Ola

Pasifika Liaison Officer

Community Engagement QLD / NT

Immigration Operations, Immigration Group

Department of Home Affairs

Expression of interest :
Pasifika Townsville will be holding a Multicultural Food Festival Saturday 16th December.
Please private mail if interested. Park TBC.
Celebrating different Foods from differs countries.