1. The Applicant has maintained a knowingly false fiction around significant aspects of his life story in a series of applications lodged with the Respondent's Department for a period exceeding 20 years. To my mind, the repeated inconsistencies and demonstrable misinformation give rise to serious misgivings about whether this Tribunal can now reliably accept whether the Applicant's correct name is either 'Rahim Dad Naiebzada' or 'Sarwar Naiebzada.' Taking a longitudinal approach to the information sequentially recorded by the Applicant in each application to the Respondent's Department, it is now very difficult - indeed unsafe - for this Tribunal to reliably accept whatever the Applicant now claims to be the makeup of his family, where those family members reside and, whether those claimed family members are actually real people.
2. The state of the evidence lacks any convincing consistency around the Applicant's life story such that a definitive assessment could now be made about that life story which, in turn, could ground any type of safe finding about who the Applicant actually is. Harsh though it may sound, it seems obvious that the Applicant has maintained a pattern of saying whatever he thinks needs to said to achieve a favourable outcome for whichever particular visa he was applying for. Virtually everything the Applicant now purports to say about his life story is from him and him alone. There is little or no reliable corroboration beyond the Applicant's own evidence. For example, his mother could have provided independent context around (1) the passage of the family from Afghanistan to Iran; (2) the precise make-up of the family; (3) the conjugal status of the children of the family; and (4) the actual names of each of the family members including the Applicant. However, there is no evidence from the mother.

1. There seems to be a consensus between the parties that the documentary evidence around this second pillar of identity is sparse. It was contended of behalf of the Respondent that this documentary evidence is almost non-existent. But there nevertheless are at least several documents residing in specific documentary categories which merit attention and discussion for present purposes.
2. The first of those documents comprises a UNHCR[66] "Asylum Seeker Certificate" which relevantly appears in the material.[67] Similar to his evidence on virtually all other aspects of this case, the Applicant obtained this document from the UNHCR exclusively on what he told them without any corroboration from any ancillary documents. In those circumstances, one can only wonder about precisely what this certificate is purporting to certify. The document carries a "Date of Issue" of 27 October 2010. It then refers to the Applicant's date of entry into Indonesia (en route to Australia) of 23 October 2010. It therefore cannot be denied that the purported certification proffered by this document was produced by the UNHCR in just four days after it encountered the Applicant. There is nothing before the Tribunal about any procedures, protocols or other pre-issue checks and/or inquiries conducted by the UNHCR before issuing its 'certificate.' The evidentiary value of this purported certificate is accordingly and very significantly compromised.
3. The second document possibly falling within the ambit of this second pillar is the Applicant's 'Amayesh Card' which, for all intents and purposes, comprises the equivalent of an Iranian identity card. The Applicant says "To the best of my knowledge, the first identity document which was ever issued to me was an Iranian Amayesh Card in the name of Sarwar Naeibzadah, son of Ghulam Sakhi. I am not sure on the transliteration of the spelling of that card. However, the card has the date of birth 18 June 1976. I no longer have this card."[68]
4. In his Statutory Declaration made in March 2024, the Applicant says:

"With regards to my date of birth, the date 18 June 1976 appeared on my Amayesh Card. It was, to the best of my knowledge, not written there because my parents knew the exact date of my birth but just became written there somehow in the course of applying for [sic] Amayesh Card from the Iranian government. After it was used there, it was also used in my school enrolment and school documents as required. I should mention that I made a lot of effort to find a copy of my historic Iranian Amayesh card to provide it in support of my citizenship application, but unfortunately, I have not been able to acquire a copy. The original card was taken by Iranian authorities when I went to Afghanistan for work in 2007."[69]

1. Once again, the Applicant - and the Applicant alone - makes reference to a fact, matter or thing without any corroboration from any other document or natural person witness. Even if the relevant 'Amayesh Card' is lost, the Applicant could have recovered some measure of credibility, if, for example, his mother could have said words to the effect of either (1) she has the Applicant's 'Amayesh Card' in her possession; or (2) she recalls the Applicant having an 'Amayesh Card' because every adult person in Iran has one but that she could not immediately locate it. There is no such corroboration before the Tribunal and any evidentiary value otherwise attributable to this claimed 'Amayesh Card' is consequentially compromised.
2. Third, while the Applicant refers to the 'Amayesh Card' being "...also used in my school enrolment and school documents as required", the only school-related documents produced by the Applicant for present purposes comprise the abovementioned year 3 school academic records, the Iranian Certificate of Completion of Primary School as well as an Iranian Certificate of Completion of Intermediary School. The difficulty with placing any measure of reliance on these school documents for present purposes is twofold: (1) on the Applicant's own evidence, the claimed 'Amayesh Card' "...was also used in my school enrolment and school documents as required" - yet that card no longer exists and/or is not corroborated by anyone else_;_ (2) in the 2011 protection visa application, the Applicant told the Respondent's Department that he had completed grades 1-9 at educational institutions in Afghanistan - but now purports to suggest he did his schooling in Iran. The evidence around this category of school/education documents is both confusing and unreliable.

1. While the material contains several facial images claimed to depict the Applicant, the essential difficulty with making any definitive finding about whether these are actual images of the Applicant is that those images carry the same taint of no corroboration or independent verification from anyone else about who those images actually represent. The further difficulty arises from how these images were produced. For example, the abovementioned UNHCR 'Asylum Seeker Certificate' carries a depiction of someone described as "Sarwar Nayib Zadeh.' Yet this certificate was produced in barely four days. As mentioned earlier, we are not aware of what, if any, pre-issued checks or enquiries were made by the UNHCR about the veracity of the Applicant's image being truly representative of the person to whom they issued this certificate.
2. A similar finding can be made about images in the material purporting to depict family members.[70] The Tribunal hesitates to attribute any evidentiary value to these images as some kind of biometrically indicative proof of the Applicant's identity in circumstances where (1) on his own evidence, some claimed immediate family members he mentioned to the Respondent's Department were either entirely fake or more distantly related to him; and (2) none of these claimed family members depicted in these images corroborated what (or whom) the Applicant now says they actually represent.

1. The cumulative state of the evidence around each of the three pillars of identity is incoherent, incomplete or otherwise implausible and ultimately unreliable. The Applicant's knowingly false narrative perpetrated upon the Respondent's Department across 20 years necessarily leads to a finding that the evidence goes nowhere near displacing the prohibition contained in s 24(3) of the Act. The state of the evidence does not remotely reach the threshold of satisfaction compelled by Makasa. The predominantly self-corroborated state of the evidence with reference to each of the three pillars of identity has lead me to an unequivocal finding of not being satisfied of the Applicant's identity.
2. The evidentiary threshold compelled upon an applicant by s 24(3) is intentional. This is because a grant of Australian citizenship upon a person is viewed as "a fundamental bedrock of the Australia polity", which "is not to be bestowed lightly".[71] Further, it is well-established that:

"...a Certificate of Australian Citizenship is a legal document of considerable significance and the Tribunal should not countenance an outcome which could lead to such a certificate being issued in circumstances where, as is the case here, the identity of the Applicant is far from clear."[72]

1. Pursuant to s 105(a) of the Administrative Review Tribunal Act 2024 (Cth), this Tribunal affirms the delegate's decision under review made on 15 May 2024 and refuses a grant of citizenship to this Applicant.

1. I certify that the preceding 60 (sixty) paragraphs are a true copy of the reasons for the decision herein of Senior Member Theodore Tavoularis

.....................[SGD]............................

[1] Hereinafter referred to as the 'decision under review.'

[2] Hereinafter referred to as 'the Act.'

[3] Pursuant to s 21(2)(h) of the Act.

[4] Pursuant to s 24(3) of the Act.

[5] Citing Briginshaw v Briginshaw [1938] HCA 34; (1938) 60 CLR 336 at 361.

[6] At [38]; citing Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs v Jia Legeng (2001) 205 CLR 507 at 532 [73]; Re Patterson; Ex parte Taylor (2001) 207 CLR 391 at 447 [167].

[9] Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum, Australian Citizenship Bill 2007 (Cth).

[10] Drake and Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, Re (No 2) (1979) 2 ALD 634.

[32] A3, p 1, [4], [5], [6] and [7].

[45] A3, p 2, [15(b)]. Note to reader: in this quotation, the surname "Naiebzada" is initially recorded as "Naibzaba." I will presume this discrepancy arises from a typographical error.

[49] A4, p 4, [26] and [27]. Note to reader: the name "Masooma" is recorded as "Mahsomeh" in this actual application.

[66] United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

[70] See for example, R2, p 43; R1, pp 203-212; pp 218-221.

[71] John v Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs [2021] AATA 77, at para [4], per SM Puplick.

[72] Beyan v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection [2015] AATA 256, at para [38] per SM Walsh_._