The Police Check!

When applying for Australian citizenship, there's a few things you're going to need to do, and you're better off getting them taken care of as soon as humanly possible. One of these things is a police check from your hometown municipality. Obviously, Australia doesn't want any hardened criminals arriving on her shores (anymore), so take it from me - this is what needs to be done!


What you want to do is to contact the police department in your home city (San Francisco Police Department in my case) and ask to speak to the Identification Bureau. Basically, in order to do a police check on you, they'll need some information sent to them:


1. Your date of birth,
2. Your race,
3. Your gender,
4. Your Social Security Number,
5. Your Driver's License Number, and 
6. A self-addressed, stamped envelope so they can send you the document.


They also require you to send all this information to them accompanied by a notarized letter. Luckily, there are many people in Australia who can notarize things for you:


1. A chiropractor,
2. A medical practitioner,
3. A patent attorney,
4. A psychologist,
5. A dentist,
6. A nurse,
7. A pharmacist,
8. A trade marks attorney,
9. A legal practitioner,
10. An optometrist,
11. A physiotherapist,
12. A police officer,
13. A justice of the peace,
14. A veterinary surgeon, or
15. A postal clerk.


So the choice is yours! HOWEVER - they notarize documents, not letters. Trust me, write a letter and go to one of these people to notarize it; you'll leave empty-handed. So here's what you do: Download a STATUTORY DECLARATION template from the Intertubes, and fill in where necessary. THEN you take the document one of the above people, and get it done. While you're at it, get a photocopy of your driver's license and passport, and have those copies notarized as well - it's always better to provide a little more information than required, as opposed to not enough.


ONE MORE THING. When I spoke to the friendly Identification Bureau lady, she gave me a very high QT: Don't send by post. This will take weeks (!) to process and get through. Instead, this nice lady told me, send via FedEx with a self-addressed and paid FedEx envelope. The department gets to FedExed parcels much, much faster than with regular post, and they can have the police check documents delivered to you much, much quicker (like within a week).


SO NOW YOU KNOW. AND KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE.