Attention Australian travelers in Bali: don’t totally depend on your embassy and consulate for help. Fed up with traveling Australian citizens seeking consular help in “reckless” situations, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop is laying down the law over what kind of support is reasonable with a new diplomatic strategy.
Overseas consular services will now be more restricted, reports SBS, and Aussies should not assume the embassy will bail them out.
In the most extreme cases, Bishop says some Australians deliberately broke the law while abroad then sought diplomatic help upon arrest.
“If you go to Bali and you are importing large amounts of drugs into Bali, what planet have you come from? Seriously? Post Schapelle Corby, post the Bali 9 – and yet people still think it’s ok to import drugs into a country where they have signs the size of movie screens saying ‘the death penalty applies to drug trafficking in this country,’” Bishop said, as quoted by SBS.
“Our consular staff are not there to pay for the repairs to your jet ski,” Bishop said. “They are not there to pay your hotel bill. They are not there to lend you a laptop or to provide you with office space in the embassy for you to do your work. Consular officers cannot get you out of jail or issue you with a passport so you can evade justice. Consular assistance is a last-resort service.”
She also added consular help should “not be seen as a right – it is a privilege”.
Diplomats are overloaded, according to Bishop. Australian diplomats handle over 1300 consular cases overseas a day and about 1000 Australians on average are in jail or overseas detention at any given time (whoa, that’s a lot of mischief).
Diplomats can only do so much and travelers should take out travel insurance and show more personal responsibility Bishop, said.
However, Bishop says this does not mean Oz will leave its citizens totally “stranded.” “We’re not going to leave genuine need unaddressed but we do have to recognize that there are some who game the system. And we’re alert to it.”
Cost-recovery fees have yet to be imposed when people use consular services, “but it remains a live option and it’s one we’ll consider again if necessary to address this issue in the future.”
Source: SBS
