RED TAPE is forcing 11-year-old Addison Amor to wait years to become an Australian citizen, his father says.
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Addison’s parents Tracy and Mike want naturalising adopted children made easier as they face a wait of at least four years for citizenship.
Addison and Tracy will remain on bridging visas until the process is complete.
Mr Amor, a Seven News presenter, said the couple had had Addison from his first hours of life.
“We are the only people he has ever known. It frustrates me in this case that we need to say he is our ‘adopted son’. He’s just our son, who happens to be adopted,” he told 3AW’s Neil Mitchell.
In August Mr Amor moved back to Australia from Seven News’ US bureau and “naively” thought it would be easy to get a passport.
“On the form it says, clearly, ‘is the child adopted?’ You tick yes and there you go, it’s starting a whole world of pain,” he said.
“I accept that I am married to an American citizen, that was my decision and if she has to wait, she has to wait. But this is my son.
“Just because he is adopted it doesn’t make any difference. I’m tired of him being treated any different. We are just a normal family.”
It was not just a matter of bureaucratic changes in Australia, Mr Amor said. There needed to be an attitudinal shift.
“There are many ways to form a family, adoption is just one of them,” he said.
“There aren’t many adoptions … in Australia.”
Only 246 Australian children were adopted in 2016-17, a recent parliamentary inquiry into declining rates found.
