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The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times
National
Miriam Webber

Shift to 'last minute' travel contributed to post-COVID passport chaos

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Deputy Secretary Craig Maclachlan. Picture by Sitthixay Ditthavong

An understaffed passport office did not anticipate a post-COVID shift to "last minute" travel, a trend which contributed to a backlog of 430,000 applications in September last year.

The agency had planned for a surge when Australia's borders reopened, but the sheer scale of it caught top public servants by surprise.

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