By KATE TAN

New Population Minister Alan Tudge has denied reports that tensions between Canberra and Beijing has deliberately slowed down citizenship applications for Chinese-born residents.

Mr Tudge, then the citizenship minister, spoke at a conference of the Victorian Chapter of the Chinese Community Council of Australia this month, in a session that focused on tensions between Canberra and Beijing.

Mr Tudge said there had been no impact on the processing of Chinese citizenship applications.

“I emphasise there is absolutely no group to be singled out and to be slowed down in relation to the citizenship applications,” he said.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported this month that residents of Chinese heritage made up 3 per cent of total application approvals from July 2017 to February 2018. Over the 2012-2016 period, the proportion was 6 per cent.

Only 1559 Chinese-born residents were granted citizenship during the first eight months of the 2017-2018 financial year.

This makes up less than 24 per cent of the 6500 approved applications from the previous full financial year, according to figures obtained by Fairfax Media.

Mr Tudge said that although he could not confirm the data reported by The Sydney Morning Herald, he said the reported figures overlooked the whole picture, as the comparison was unevenly drawn between two-thirds of the most recent financial year and the full financial year prior.

“Given the volume of applications, I don’t think it is reasonable to look at a narrow window of time and make a conclusion,” he said.

According to the same statistics, there are now 241,606 people waiting in the queue to be approved for citizenships – a 127 per cent increase from the previous year.

The approval rate for Chinese-born residents in this financial year was less than half compared to the last financial year.

Mr Tudge said the increasing number of citizenship applications, and the introduction of a security check, were two of the three main factors that had decelerated the processing speed.

Mr Tudge said delays were also caused by the fact the then Labor government admitted tens of thousands of refugees, who were now waiting to become citizens.

He said that because many arrived without documents, more time was needed to identify these refugees, and this meant a longer approval process for all applicants. 

“The accusation and the conspiracy theory against Chinese applications are wrong,” he said.

Sydney Morning Herald political reporter Eryk Bagshaw said his article did not allege that the  Department of Home Affairs had deliberately slowed down the processing of Chinese applicants, despite figures showing approvals to Chinese residents were down, while approvals to Indian, South African and UK residents were up.

Fairfax revealed that over the same period of this financial year, Indian approvals rose from 15 to 18 per cent, British rose from 14 to 16 per cent, and South African up from 3 to 5 per cent.

"Those statistics are spelled out in the story,” Mr Bagshaw said.