Deal with your own problems, embassies say

Requests include asking embassy staff to pay for jet ski repairs. Picture: Getty

Australia is taking steps to curb such absurd requests that its travelling citizens have lodged with Australian embassies and consulates around the world.

Foreign minister Julie Bishop announced the new measures yesterday to highlight consular services as a last resort and to promote “a stronger culture of self-reliance and personal responsibility in the travelling public”.

These measures include a new policy of providing minimal consular services to Australians who wilfully, repeatedly or negligently get themselves into trouble. Charging for the consular help is also something the government is considering, she said.

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“Our consular staff are not there to pay for the repairs to your jet ski; they’re not there to pay your hotel bill; they’re not there to lend you a laptop or to provide you with office space in the embassy for you to do your work,” Ms Bishop said, listing real requests that Australian embassies have refused.

At the embassy in Bangkok – Australia’s busiest – an Australian walked in with a prostitute and was refused a loan to pay for services already provided, said Anita Downey, a senior official at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). Such requests are common at that embassy, she said.

Other embassy locations that frequently get outlandish requests include Los Angeles, Bali, Manila and Dubai, she said.

Diplomats have fielded requests for an armoured car, help removing a polecat above the ceiling of a house and intervention to prevent payment of a speeding fine, said senior foreign ministry official Justin Brown.

Another example was Australians who were evacuated from civil unrest in Egypt in a government-chartered Qantas airliner in 2011 and expected frequent flier miles for the trip.

Some Australians evacuated from the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami in South-east Asia requested first-class seats, DFAT records show.

Australians are avid travellers. With a population of 24 million, they made 9.2 million overseas trips last year. That same year, the foreign affairs department assisted 15,000 of them.

Mr Brown said the US, Canada and New Zealand embassies were experiencing similar escalating expectations from its citizens.

“At most of our posts there are people we would describe colloquially as serial pests who are constantly bouncing back into the embassy because they have run out of money or they have got some sort of other personal problem, and they often come to the embassy and the consular teams expecting us to solve their problems for them,” he said.

Ms Downey said that a fifth of emergency loans made to Australians overseas are never repaid.

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