The Secretary to the Department of Home and Territories has forwarded for advice the following memorandum:

Referring to your opinion dated 14th August last relative to the Naturalization Act 1903-1917, section 5-whether service on a Commonwealth boat is residence in Australia-I forward herewith a copy of a letter received from the Superintendent, Mercantile Marine Office, Melbourne, who writes on behalf of Mr A.B., whose application for naturalization prompted this Department to obtain the opinion mentioned above.

I shall be glad if further consideration can be given to the question. If this Department had any discretion in the matter, it would regard this case as complying with the Act.

The letter received from the Superintendent, Mercantile Marine Office, Melbourne, omitting formal parts, is as follows:

With reference to yours of 19 August last referred to me by A.B., I beg to inform you that the applicant has produced papers to me that he has been employed on British and Australian ships, continued service for the past 20 years.

He has been continually engaged on the s.s. Australbrook as donkeyman, a capacity in rating next to the engineers. This vessel was one of the first purchased in 1916 by the Australian Government. The vessel is registered in Melbourne and is under the Australian flag, and her home port is Melbourne; therefore as the seaman has no other home he can fairly be regarded to be domiciled in Australia.

Unless some consideration be given to this view in regard to his application it is hopeless for a seaman living on an Australian-owned and Australian-registered ship ever to attain the desired privilege of Australian citizenship.

Section 5 of the Naturalization Act 1903-1917 lays down the following requirements for the grant of a certificate of naturalization in the Commonwealth, namely: (a) residence in the Commonwealth; (b) intention to settle in the Commonwealth; and (c) residence in Australia continuously for two years immediately preceding the application for the certificate of naturalization.

The Acting Solicitor-General on 14 August 1919 advised01, in connection with the case of A.B. that:

Apart from statute ... a Commonwealth ship cannot be regarded as part of the Commonwealth, and the member of the crew of such a ship cannot claim that he has resided in Australia by reason only of the fact that he has been such a member.

I see no reason to depart from that opinion, and am clearly of opinion that, on the facts as stated above, A.B. is neither resident in the Commonwealth nor has resided in Australia continuously for two years immediately preceding his application for a certificate of naturalization.

I am also of opinion that on those facts there is no clear intention shown by A.B. to settle in the Commonwealth and he is thus further disqualified from applying for a certificate.

I do not think that, as suggested by the Superintendent, it follows from this opinion that a seaman on a foreign-going ship can never hope to secure Australian citizenship. The possession of a home and family here would be a material circumstance.

But I can only advise on the facts as stated, and the law as it exists.

[Vol. 16, p. 412]