How To Get An Australian Passport
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If you are going to travel overseas you will need to have a passport which can be used as evidence of identity and citizenship when you are travelling internationally. Make sure you don’t leave this until the last moment.
Passports are issued by the Australian Passports Office which is part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. You can obtain application forms from the Passport Office or from any Australia Post office. They can also be downloaded from the Passport Office’s website, www.passports.gov.au, however, they can’t be submitted online. You have to submit your application in person and undergo a passport interview, and you do this either at a Passport Office, or more conveniently for most people at an Australia Post office.
You will need to make an appointment for the interview – which is basically to establish your bona fides - so contact your local post office to book a time. You will need to bring your completed application form and supporting material, itemized in the application form. This can include originals or certified copies of your birth certificate, Australian citizenship certificate, marriage certificate, previous passport, driver’s license, proof of current address, and two passport photographs.
You will have to pay a fee when you lodge your application. As at 1 July 2008 the fee for a standard 32-page passport for an adult is $208 and the passport is valid for 10 years from the date of issue. Passports for children and seniors are $104, but are only valid for five years. If you plan to travel frequently you can get a ‘frequent traveller’ passport containing 64 pages for $312.
The application fees cost the same whether you are applying for a new passport or renewing an existing one. Normally it takes up to 10 working days for the Australian Passport Office to process a passport application from the date of lodgement, and you should allow up to a further eight working days for it to travel through the postal system. However, you can reduce the time to two business days if you're prepared to pay a priority processing fee of $78.
All new Australian passports now contain embedded microchips to improve identity verification and reduce identity-related fraud. The chip stores your digitised photograph, name, gender, date of birth, nationality, passport number, and the passport expiry date. Australia is one of the first countries to introduce this and is a leader in the development of biometric passport technology.