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This tale begins at Christmas, as I was preparing for a trip to France to visit friends and family for the festive season. My wife and eldest son were already there, so there were three of us left at home getting ready for the big trip. I had a busy week planned before leaving with the kids, and I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget anything obvious—like our passports.
Almost exactly 96 hours before our 6am Friday flight from Sydney International Airport, I gathered everyone’s passports and popped them into a bag by the front door, then gave myself a pat on the back for being so organised. This was when things began to go a bit pear-shaped. I was triple checking them when I noticed a worrying detail: my nearly six-year-old daughter still had her baby photo in her Australian passport. Yikes! Then I checked the date and discovered that it had expired back in August! Double yikes!
Luckily, being a dual national of the UK and Australia, my daughter has two passports, and her British one had recently been renewed. I wondered, could she leave Australia on her British one without a valid Aussie passport?
After I removed my heart from the back of my throat, I knew I needed to figure out the answer to this—and quickly. After checking on Google, the Home Affairs website confirmed this would not be a good idea, stating that “Australian citizens should use their Australian passport to enter and leave Australia.”
The Australian government’s Smartraveller website also says that dual nationals “may have issues coming into Australia on a foreign passport,” and that airlines may not let you board a plane to Australia without either proof of Australian citizenship, an Australian passport or a valid visa.
Determined to make sure our big family trip went smoothly, I leapt into action on Monday. Here’s what I did:
Step 1: I prepared a passport application for my daughter
This was not a straightforward process, as the application requires a signature from both parents, and my wife was, at this point, at a work Christmas function overseas. Not helpful!
Step 2: I contacted the Australian passport office
Feeling just a little concerned at this point, I called the passport office on 131 232, although they were only able to tell me information I had already found online. If you find yourself in this situation, visit the rapid applications section of their website for tips.
The passport office told me that you need two business days to have your application processed, starting from the time they receive it. This means it’s also necessary to factor in the time it takes for your paperwork to get from the post office to the passport office, so in reality, two-day processing could take up to four business days.
Fortunately, there were a couple of other emergency measures I could try in the meantime.
Step 3: I contacted Smartraveller
The Australian government’s Smartraveller provides consular assistance 24 hours a day, so I called them for help. You can do this by calling 1300 555 135 (from within Australia) or +61 2 6261 3305 (from overseas).
They were incredibly helpful and even tried to get me an appointment at the embassy. If you can get one of these, you can get a passport in a couple of hours, but sadly I couldn’t, so my best option was still to get an application to the post office as quickly as possible.
The passport office told me that, as long as I could get my paperwork sent away by noon on Tuesday, I’d be in with a chance, and that all I needed was a signature from my wife. They said a pdf signature from her would be ok, but only if I gave them my original signature as well (so there were two pages required; one with my signature in ink, and the other with both our signatures as a pdf).
To be assured of a ‘double rapid’ service, they advised me to fill in a form b11, which attests that you are in a pickle, and to print off my ticket, so the passport office knew I was flying at 6am Friday.
Step 4: I contacted Home Affairs
I was also advised to call Home Affairs on 131 881 to check if my daughter could go without a valid Aussie passport. This got me to an answer, but it took help from several experts at their end.
An Australian citizen can leave on another county’s passport but the staff at the airport have to be able to identify you. The best way to do this is with a valid Australian passport but you can also try with other means. So they advised me to take:
- the expired Aussie passport,
- a birth certificate, and
- a citizenship certificate (my daughter was born overseas).
They thought this would be ok but warned me it could take additional time and that the airline and customs would use their judgement. Yikes again, but I was starting to feel confident that I would be able to leave even without a passport.
Step 5: I lodged a rapid application
There are three locations in Sydney and others in other capital cities where you can do rapid applications. I chose the GPO but here are their other locations as well. I submitted my application at 9.30am on Tuesday, with 69 hours to go.
Step 6: SUCCESS
With just 46 hours to go I received an email saying the passport was ready for collection. Amazing! The whole thing was turned around in just 23 hours. What a truly incredible service. Now, there was just the matter of my travel insurance…
I hope you never find yourself in the same predicament. But should you find yourself about to travel with an expired passport, consider taking these steps as a way to resolve things.
