Senate estimates: Australian Passport Office not prepared for travel demand

The Australian Passport Office has conceded the demand for travel in the wake of easing Covid-19 border restrictions “far exceeded” expectations.

Earlier this year, Australians seeking to travel overseas were forced to wait in queues for hours to receive application updates, only to wait months for new or renewed passports.

Fronting senate estimates on Thursday, APO executive director Bridget Brill said while officials had anticipated an increase in passport applications after borders reopened, the demand had overwhelmed the system.

She said prior to Covid-19, the office was processing anywhere from 5000 to 9000 applications a day, which dropped dramatically to about 2000 a day during the pandemic.

When borders opened again, despite months of attempting to appeal to Australians to lodge their applications early, those processing numbers surged dramatically to up to 15,000 a day.

Ultimately, the modelling was wrong, officials conceded.

“On the modelling we had done, based on the data received from the travel industry and other sources, we anticipated we were going to be able to meet the demand based on the modelling,” Ms Brill said.

“Unfortunately, the surge in travel (and) the wish to travel internationally far exceeded anyone’s expectations around the timing of that.

“It was around April/May (this year) that we got demand that far exceeded what we had modelled across the scenarios. A similar thing played out in the travel sector itself.”

Applications in the queue dropped from 428,000 in early September to 180,000 this week.

Ms Brill said the office had doubled its workforce in the lead-up to the border reopening but still had struggled to keep up with demand.

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said when Labor came to government, it was clear the passport office – like many other offices – had been inadequately prepared for what would happen as Covid restrictions eased.

“I understand Australians’ frustrations about this, and staff in this area have worked very hard since the election with us to try and deal with this situation to clear the backlog,” she said.

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade deputy secretary Craig Maclachlan said the average processing time had dropped from “well over 30 days to about 23 days”.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7r7HWrGWcp51jrrZ706uYr52cZMGzrdWeo2atoJmutbHSaKeaq6OlvLPAjKidn6GTmnqisMyiq6xlnaSxprjLoqWgZaeWwG7D0ailoGWgp7yuvNOipaBlnZa3sL6MnZylmamoeqK6w2aorp2lmsBwusSwqmarpKS%2FunvEbmiebJVns3J%2Bj5xocJtjm4R2fpRxbHCdk2x9dq2YaQ%3D%3D