Australia has always been open to receiving immigrants, granting permanent residence and consequent citizenship to many of them.
Australia over the decades has become the dream and destination of many Italians, even more so than America thanks to its welcoming nature and easier visa applications.
In the past 20 years or so and Pre-Covid, most immigrants started this adventure with a tourist visa, to get a first idea how the country is or with a working holiday visa that allowed them to travel, work and study at the same time.
But moving to Australia permanently is not exactly easy and often not an immediate process because Australian laws are quite strict in terms of immigration.
Currently, the Italian ethnic group, for instance, is the fourth largest in Australia by demographic extension and, moreover, the Italian language is the second most studied foreign language in schools, after Japanese.
The majority of Australian-Italian speakers are immigrants from first or second generation who inherited from their parents a linguistic variety of the Italian language since they speak - in most cases - a language consisting of a base of Italian and/or one or more dialects, also mixing elements borrowed from English.
The Australian Italian community has - especially in recent years - played an important role in enhancing the Italian style and the Made in Italy products but, in order to really understand the contribution given by Italians to make Australia great we need to take a leap in the past when the first immigrants moved to this country to work in agriculture.
I did some research and sometimes it was not particularly pleasant to hear how Italians were called here and one of these terms was wog.
The term wog was used to call Italians, Greeks and immigrants who came from southern European countries and had a darker skin tone.
Starting from the second post-war period, the Italian workers contributed significantly to the development of Australia and the terms were no longer used.
Unfortunately, in more recent years, Australia has decided to simplify and at the same time to tighten immigration laws (not only due to the pandemic).
The Government of Canberra, on the one hand, has drastically reduced the types of Visas available for those who decide to move to Australia, and on the other hand, is making the procedure for obtaining citizenship longer and more complex by requesting, in this last case, not only the personal and professional merit but also the complete social, cultural and linguistic integration.
The other changes in recent years have involved also student visas, temporary work visas, the reduction of the list of professions for access to Skilled independent permanent visas (Visas that allow you to live and work in Australia permanently without the need to have a subordinate employment contract) and Skilled nominated permanent visas (Visas for those who, belonging to certain professional categories), and the legislation for obtaining citizenship.
Regarding temporary work visas, the Australian Prime Minister announced some years ago the abolition of the Visa used by most international citizens to obtain Australian citizenship after two years from its granting and it was replaced with the Temporary Skill Shortage Visa.
Finally, when it comes to citizenship, the main changes concern the timing for obtaining it: no longer 1 year from the status of Permanent Resident but 4 years, more selective English language tests and more questions regarding Australian history, values and principles.
Such regulatory reforms have not undermined the Australian identity and the country continues to declare itself proud of being a land of immigration, being one the most multicultural countries in the world, whose over half of the population is made up of people born overseas, and above all Australia prides itself to continue welcoming immigrants who respect values, the law and contribute to the growth of our society.
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