On 20 April 2017 the Federal government announced that it was strengthening the requirements to become an Australian Citizen. This includes increasing the time an applicant will need to be an Australian permanent resident from 1 year to 4 years, introducing an English language test, adding questions to the citizenship test and introducing a requirement to show the applicant has integrated into the community. The government plans to introduce legislation by the end of 2017 to effect the above changes with the legislation being effective from 20 April 2017.
Read the discussion paper Strengthening the Test for Australian Citizenship (pdf).