DFAT’s Passport and

Consular Services

AFTA Presentation

21 October 2015

Australian Passport Office

Refreshed

Smartraveller

website

• Faster and easier to use

• Responsive to all devices

• New consular wizard

New

Safe travel

marketing

campaign

Easier to use travel advice

• Levels within a country

• Colour-coded maps

• Local emergency numbers

• Improved advice for each of

the four levels

• Bulletins on events

Subscribe to

travel advice

• Receive email updates as advice is reissued

• Important for clients to any destination, and especially in emergency situations

• Separate process to registration – for now

Apps &

Social Media • Push notifications on

destinations of choice

• Registering travel plans

made more simple

• Android app out next

week

• Facebook and Twitter

The ‘right’ travel

insurance

• Seeing Australians in trouble overseas even with insurance

• Insurance appropriate to their activities and destinations

• Understand the policy.

Consular assistance

• Guided by Consular Services Charter

• and assessment on vulnerability

• What we can and can’t do

• But we…

• Are only a last resort after other avenues

exhausted

• Can’t override local laws.

• Contact our missions overseas or the

CEC.

A secure, efficient and responsive passport

service

• 1.835 million passports

– including 8171 Emergency Passports, mostly in Los Angeles, Bangkok,

New York, Rome and Paris

• 5216 passports lost or stolen overseas

– Most lost in USA, UK, China, NZ and Thailand

– Most stolen in Italy, USA, UK, France, Spain

• Allow up to three weeks to get a new passport, or

• Use the Priority Processing Service

– passport issued within 2 business days

• Australian Passport Information Service (APIS)

– helpline on 131 232, available every day

– first contact for clients who need a passport urgently

Common passport issues

X Seriously damaged passport

X Passport with insufficient validity for the

country/ies to be visited

X Non-compliant photos will not work at SmartGate

Photo Guidelines

Passport changes in 2016

• New application form, new passport website

• Removal of lost and stolen fees

• 10-year passports for child applicants aged 16 and 17

• Frequent traveller passports will be phased out

New Website Layout

Key messages for travellers

! Make sure your passport is fit for use every time you travel

! Being turned back at the airport for insufficient passport validity does not

entitle you to urgent passport issue for compassionate reasons

! Keep your passport as safe as you do your money

! Report a lost or stolen passport immediately to the nearest Australian

mission overseas

! Emergency passports are a temporary solution to keep you travelling in

the short term

Some

consular

trends and

priorities

• Some figures

• Prescription medicine

• Dual nationals

• Mental health overseas

• Sexual assault

Responding

to a crisis

Cyclone Pam 2015

MH17 2014

Lebanon evacuation 2006

Nepal evacuation 2014

Typhoon Haiyan 2013

Japan Tsunami 2011

• Registration and

subscription helps

• Insurance is critical

• Keeping in contact with

family/friends

• Government assisted

departure is last option

Thank you

consular.feedback@dfat.gov.au

Australian Passport Office