Australian Letter of the Year

Wouldn't normally allow this language but I think it was written by a prospector

Jeff

AUSTRALIAN LETTER OF THE YEAR

This is an actual letter sent to the then DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) Minster, The Hon Alexander Downer and the then Immigration Minister, The Hon Amanda Vanstone. The Government tried desperately to censure the author, but got nowhere because every legal person who read it nearly wet themselves laughing!

Please excuse the language contained within, but I suspect the author was somewhat upset? I’ll let you decide!


Dear Mr. Minister,

I’m in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe this.
How is it that K-Mart has my address and telephone number, and knows that I bought a television set and golf clubs from them back in 1997, and yet the Federal Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date.

For Christ sakes, do you guys do this by hand?

My birth date you have in my Medicare information, and it is on all the income tax forms I’ve filed for the past 40 years. It is also on my driver’s licence, on the last eight passports I’ve ever had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I’ve had to fill out before being allowed off the planes over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that I’ve filled out every 5 years since 1966.
Also... would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother’s name is Audrey, my father’s name is Jack, and I’d be absolutely fucking astounded if that ever changed between now and when I drop dead!!!...

****!

I apologize, Mr. Minister. But I’m really pissed off this morning. Between you and me, I’ve had enough of all this bullshit!

You send the application to my house, then you ask me for my fucking address!! What the hell is going on with your mob? Have you got a gang of mindless Neanderthal arseholes working there!

And another thing, look at my damn picture.. Do I look like Bin Laden? I can’t even grow a beard for God’s sakes. I just want to go to New Zealand and see my new granddaughter. (Yes, my son interbred with a Kiwi girl). And would someone please tell me, why would you give a **** whether I plan on visiting a farm in the next 15 days? If I ever got the urge to do something weird to a sheep or a horse, believe you me, I’d sure as hell not want to tell anyone!

Well, I have to go now, ‘cause I have to go to the other end of the city, and get another fucking copy of my birth certificate, and to part with another $80 for the privilege of accessing MY OWN INFORMATION!

Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot, to assist in the issuance of a new passport on the same day?? Nooooo.. that’d be too fucking easy and makes far too much sense. You would much prefer to have us running all over the place like chickens with our fucking heads cut off, and then having to find some high-society wanker to confirm that it’s really me in the goddamn photo! You know the photo.. the one where we’re not allowed to smile?! .........you fucking morons

Signed - An Irate Australian Citizen.

P.S. Remember what I said above about the picture, and getting someone in high-society to confirm that it’s me? Well, my family has been in this country since before 1850! In 1856, one of my forefathers took up arms with Peter Lalor. (You do remember the Eureka Stockade!!)
I have also served in both the CMF and regular Army for something over 30 years (I went to Vietnam in 1967), and still have high security clearances. I’m also a personal friend of the president of the RSL.. and Lt General Peter Cosgrove sends me a Christmas card each year.

However, your rules require that I have to get someone ‘important’ to verify who I am; You know... someone like my doctor - WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN FUCKING PAKISTAN!!!...... a country where they either assassinate or hang their ex-Prime Ministers, and are suspended from the Commonwealth for not having the ‘right sort of government’.

You are all Fucking idiots!

NOW THAT'S GOLD

I know exactly how he must felt...............

I just recently had a similar problem. Finally being fed up with the Australian Public Dis-Service, here is my letter to my local MP.
Since then, I had several phone calls from several Departments offering their apologies.
If you think that you are treated unfairly, complain................
It's the squicky wheel that gets greased and maybe, just maybe (but I doubt it) they will grease the wheels or improve the bloody stupid systems.

Regards to all.
Frank


27^th August 2009



I would like to express my great frustration and anger, at what I have had to do, and pay, to prove my Australian Citizenship.



I retired earlier this year and went to Centrelink to see if I was eligible for a Low Income Card - not to receive any money as such but hopefully to help with payments for scripts for myself and my ill wife. I was told I needed to prove I was an Australian Citizen. (Since becoming an Australian in 1973, I have had many moves and lost my original certificate at some stage.)



On 12 June 2009 I sent the appropriate Form 119 to Dept of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC), along with a fee of $55.00, which was debited from my account a week later. Following three phone calls to this Department, I finally received my Certificate on 24^th August 2009 – 10 weeks later! I then went back to Centrelink. Apparently Centrelink can take up to 28 days to approve a Health Care Card, which puts me at least 14 weeks without any help at all from that department.



I still have elderly siblings in Germany and therefore need to re-new my Australian Passport in case I need to go there in the near future. Unfortunately I had let my passport lapse by two years. Now comes another problem!



On completing the Passport Application, I discovered that, since my new Australian Citizenship certificate does not say where I came from or what sex I am or my date of birth, I now have to have my German birth certificate officially translated! This is going to cost me another $50.00 (minimum). There is no local official translator, therefore I have to travel, or post information, to Melbourne which involves further time and expense. Therefore, if one of my siblings becomes seriously ill or dies, I won’t be able to travel overseas. I am not going to be able to send off my Passport Application until the official translation is complete, which will not be before 31^st August, 2009. Therefore it is going to take at least a couple of weeks after that before I can receive my Passport (unless I pay extra money to ask for an urgent passport and only God, the Almighty will know how much quicker the urgent attention will be).



I was also a member of the RAAF for 6 years. Apparently in that case I could have got my Citizenship Certificate for free as long as I had proof I was in the Forces. Unfortunately over the years I have also lost this proof, therefore I would still have had to pay money to get this ‘proof’, then send it to DIAC, which would have taken even more time!



I am not particularly upset about the cost so much as being upset about the time, and effort, it has taken (and still taking with the passport application) when all my information is on a computer and in other archives in Melbourne and Canberra and should only take “a touch of a button” to produce. I first started my applications on 12^th June, and still do not have a passport or Centrelink help, this is not satisfactory at all.





Most upsetting to me is the fact that although my Australian Passport had expired, none of the information that is required for a re-issue of a Passport has changed from my previously held passports (how could they?) and are freely available to whatever Authority; (for instance, my date of birth and place of birth have certainly not changed, nor have I had a gender change operation) so I cannot see why I have to prove once again that I am Australian. I have had two previous Australian passports issued to me – surely that is proof enough that I am Australian!!







The public servant(s) only have to look at the available information on file or computer.Surely, this cannot be too difficult, even for an Australian Public Servant, or is it?

I have been a faithful tax payer for the last 44 years. I have contributed greatly to the welfare and wellbeing of this Nation and to be treated in such a shameful and unnecessary way by the Australian Public Service system (which seems to be solely here for the benefit of the public servants to justify their positions and wages) is plainly wrong. My taxes at work!!!!! HAAA.



I must say, after all this, that in the end some the staff at DIAC were most helpful and apologetic and have offered me a refund BUT I feel I am being treated worse than a criminal. At least a criminal is able to get out of the country – take Tony Mokbel for one, and I am sure there are a lot who have not been caught!! And I am sure also that there are a lot more criminals who are receiving some form of benefits.



I thought the Australian Public Service was there to serve/help the public, not hinder them. I was sadly mistaken!


I feel there are quite a few rules which need to be changed and/or amended to help people like me and make the public servants more responsive to the public.