Almost 20% of priority passport applications aren’t being finalised on time despite people paying an extra $225 to jump the queue.
New figures reveal that of the 241,712 priority applications received since June, 42,448 did not meet the two-business-day deadline for completion.
“All customers affected by this would be entitled to receive a full refund of the priority fee,” the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.
The newly released figures also reveal about 80% of the 1.2m routine passports issued since June were not processed within the standard 10-business day deadline, with delays linked to a surge in demand after the reopening of the international border.
The number of Australians paying hundreds of dollars to guarantee faster processing has doubled from pre-pandemic levels, leading to a big jump in government revenue.
Applicants can choose to pay $225 to ensure their passport was ready for collection or mailing within two business days of all documents being received.
The Australian government collected $54.5m in revenue from these priority processing fees in the first 11 months of this year, Dfat has disclosed.
That revenue figure compares with $36.2m in the full calendar year 2019 – the last year not affected by Covid.
Priority processing fee applications now represent 20% of the total passport caseload, compared with 8% to 9% in 2019, according to Dfat.
“This money is returned to consolidated revenue,” it said in response to questions on notice from the latest round of Senate estimates hearings.
The projected total revenue for passport applications in the 2022-23 financial year is $824m, which includes $150m in priority processing fees.
Melbourne-based economist Angela Jackson said she submitted passport applications for her two children on 24 June for standard processing – nearly six months before the family’s planned trip to England.
Jackson said one passport arrived a month ago but the other one was completed only on Monday - five days before the family was set to depart Australia.
“It’s very stressful to be within a week or two of travelling and still be waiting, given that we had applied early,” she said.
Jackson acknowledged there were “huge pressures” on the system and the staff who processed passports. While she understood the focus on targets, Jackson called for consideration to be given to clearing the backlog with the oldest applications processed first.
When Labor took office in May, it accused the former Coalition government of having failed to properly plan for the reopening of the international border, and said it would increase staffing assigned to the passport office.
The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said it was “very clear to us that there were passport processing delays because the post-Covid surge in applications had been inadequately prepared for”.
“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 told Senate estimates.
Officials said applications that were “on hand” reached a peak of 428,000 on 7 September 2022, but that had fallen to 180,000 by early November.
The newly released responses to questions on notice show officials “expect passport demand to remain volatile for the next 12-24 months”.
Frustrated passport applicants have been contacting the offices of ministers and local MPs, who in turn have referred the matters back to the Australian passport office (APO) seeking clarity.
In the four months to 18 October, APO’s priority phone queues received 14,762 calls, which included a combination of calls from MPs’ offices and other priority calls.
Since a change to the system on 19 October, there were a further 630 calls from the MP hotline.
The department also defended its forecasting, saying that it had predicted in November 2021 “a likely upper monthly demand range of around 280,000 applications per month”.
“The highest volume scenarios exceeded 300,000 applications per month with peaks in March/April 2022,” it said.
“However, the outbreak of the Omicron variant in Australia in late 2021 dampened demand recovery and pushed the expected timing of peak demand to late 2022.”
The department said its April 2022 forecast predicted monthly demand would peak at more than 300,000 applications in October 2022, but changes in traveller behaviour and industry offerings resulted in that peak coming sooner than expected.
That meant demand peaked at 313,000 applications in June 2022 while the APO “was still in the process of onboarding and training new staff”.
