Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to start by congratulating the now not quite so new member for Fadden for not only venturing into the foray of private members' business but also moving this motion. Sometimes you just have to cut your teeth on a motion regurgitated entirely from a media release a shadow minister sent to the whips. This media release was released earlier this month in light of the Australian National Audit Office having handed down a report on the Australian Passport Office. Between the ANAO report and the media release, only one acknowledged the border closures during the pandemic or the fact that those opposite were in government at the time, and only one provided evidence based commentary on how the Australian Passport Office was managed in that period of time. I'll give you two guesses as to which one did.

Passports in Australia have come a long way since Hugh Mahon, the minister responsible for regulating passports issued by the Australian government in the early days around 110 years ago—though the minister is probably more famous for being the first and only member of this place to have been expelled. But I might fast-forward to the years 2017 to 2023. During this time Australia, like most other parts of the world, grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic. During the height of the pandemic, especially if you were an Australian, it was difficult to leave or enter Australia. The numbers are understandable, given the circumstances, but nonetheless staggering, with the Passport Office reporting the demand for their services being roughly 3½ times lower than the reported average prior to the border closures being implemented. Two point two million fewer passports were issued compared to the previous six quarters. With the uncertainty of the border closures, I can definitely understand the logic in the minds of the many Australians who opted not to renew their passports during that period. As a result, in that period between 30 and 40 per cent of the Passport Office workforce was redeployed to other areas, such as Services Australia.

While times were indeed uncertain, with the potential to become a new normal, it was an inevitable eventuality that the borders would reopen and passports would need to be issued again at a rate exponentially higher than the atrophied number we saw at the height of the COVID years. Why the Morrison government couldn't foresee this is just another example of their shambolic way of governing, which we are now all too familiar with. They don't stamp passports, mate! It is simply astounding that the then government didn't implement surge plans, despite receiving advice on how it would look prior to borders reopening. The report noted a submission from the CPSU, which noted its members were aware of a surge plan in development, but executive management disagreed with the plan. Even the engagement of Datacom to fill gaps and provide a surge workforce did not occur until May 2022, several months after the border reopened. By that time even vacant positions within the Passport Office's regular staffing levels remained unfilled.

The Morrison government here, and in so many other areas, had turned Australian into the nation of procrastination when it came to rolling out plans for the pandemic, during the pandemic and after the pandemic. In the time since I was elected to this place, I have been proud to have my office work alongside DFAT and the Passport Office for many constituents who faced some tight calls to process their passports. At its peak, the Morrison Liberal government's mismanagement on passports caused wait times to blow out to an average of 50 days. Thankfully, we have now taken that average wait time down to 3.9 days. It's no mean feat to train a new workforce on the job. I can only imagine how stressful it was for everyone working there at the time, especially with many coming back from secondments in Services Australia.

Just because the Liberal and National parties devalued our Passport Office does not reflect how this government feels about the vital work they do, and it certainly does not mean that an Australian passport should be devalued in the same way either. After taking office, the Albanese Labor government immediately started to enact plans to train up a surge workforce that, frankly, was well over a year overdue. In addition to this, the government rolled out the R series passport, the world's most secure type of passport—something that was put on ice by the former government during the pandemic. We have a passport that is now the fifth most secure in the entire world, giving Australians visa-free access to travel to over 180 countries.

In closing, I want to personally thank our people in the Passport Office and DFAT for all their hard work and everything that they do in assisting the people within our electorates to ensure that they get to go on their way and travel across this great world. Thank you very much.

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