With Australians taking nine million overseas trips last year, Australia is having to cut back on what foreign minister Julie Bishop has termed ‘gold-plated’ consular services. Caitlin Clifford explains the introduction of this new strategy.

“If you cannot afford insurance, you cannot afford to travel” said foreign minister Julie Bishop during her address at the launch of Australia’s new consular strategy. Her statement reflects a toughening of the government’s attitude towards providing consular assistance.

While the strategy contains a number of mechanisms designed to streamline Australia’s consular services, the strategy orients itself primarily around promoting a culture of self-help. Devised in response to DFAT’s mounting consular workload (since 2004, the number of overseas trips undertaken by Australians has doubled to 9 million) the strategy contains a rhetorical commitment to adjusting travellers’ expectations.

The new strategy includes a decision by the government to consolidate its diplomatic footprint by strengthening ties with consular partners from the US, UK, Canada and France. Under some circumstances, the government will deliver assistance and services through the embassies, high commissions and consulates of its close consular partners. While this will ease the strain on Australia’s tight consular resources, the new strategy is designed to take some pressure off DFAT’s stretched budget.

Adjusting expectations 

Australia’s consular services receive intense scrutiny and public pressure, in which a confluence of media coverage and political intervention generates unrealistic expectations. While high expectations are often driven by sensational media coverage, this can be exacerbated by political pressure to provide excessive levels of consular assistance (overriding the Consular Services Charter) such as the decision to provide government airlifts during the Bangkok airport protests under circumstances where travellers were inconvenienced but not in any danger.

The new consular strategy is intended to reverse this sense of entitlement, underscoring the need to manage public and media expectations about the nature of consular assistance. “Our consular staff are not there to pay for the repairs to your jet-ski…pay your hotel bill…or to provide you with office space in the embassy” explained Bishop. Instead, the government will introduce a vulnerability matrix, according priority to women and children deemed vulnerable and those in “genuine distress”.

A tougher stance towards consular assistance

The government will also toughen its stance towards ‘reckless’ and obstinate travellers, reducing consular assistance to the “absolute minimum level” if Australians “deliberately or repeatedly ac[t]…negligently” or “wilfully abuse the system”. This includes some circumstances where travellers have persisted with their travel plans despite DFAT warnings.

Under these conditions, Bishop stated that a cost-recovery system for consular services would remain a “live-option”. She noted, however, that a cost-recovery system would affect only a small number of cases and was not designed as a revenue-raising strategy. Further, Bishop’s intention to introduce “important enhancements” to DFAT’s consular activities did not include the introduction of a consular fee for passports and airfares, as recommended by the Lowy Institute.

A culture of self-reliance 

Finally, the new strategy intends to promote a culture of self-reliance, encouraging Australians to plan and prepare for their safety before they travel overseas. “[While] we will improve links with domestic organisations, tour companies and the like”, said Bishop, “there is clearly a need to tackle the demand side of the equation.” The revised Consular Services Charter urges Australians to take personal responsibility for their safety, finances and behaviour while they are travelling overseas, echoing Bishop’s sentiment that consular assistance should be requested as a “last resort”.

“I want to send a very clear message”, explained Bishop, “consular assistance should not be seen as a right, it is a privilege”.

Caitlin Clifford is a research intern at the AIIA National Office as well as an assistant editor of Australian Outlook. She can be reached at caitlinclifford@bigpond.com.