Embassy thinking
My daughter's best friend had planned to travel to Sydney on July 8 with her mother and two younger sisters and had applied for tourist visas from the Australian Embassy.
On Friday, July 5, I got a call from this young woman asking if I know anyone at the embassy. Oh no, I thought, she didn't get her visa. The poor girl was almost in tears. The embassy had knocked back all four visa applications because her father (who is not going) had not prepared "a letter of permission to travel without him" specially for the youngest member of the group. I felt so terrible for her. I also felt embarrassment (you know, the toe-curling type) that this was the only reason given for not granting four visas. The embassy told her to reapply for all four visas. The cost of this is something like Rp 1,600,000.
What's with the embassy? Couldn't you guys have called her and said this one piece of documentation was needed to grant the visas; could she bring it in as soon as possible? Would it have been any harder than taking the time to reject all four visas for such a reason and then making her reapply for the lot?
As an Australian, I am embarrassed for my embassy when I hear they make decisions like this. They are making a heap of money out of something that used to be given for free. My husband (who is Indonesian) asked me whether they were learning from Indonesians on how to take money from customers.
Come on guys, why are you making it so hard for people who just want to have a holiday in Oz. Let people know before they hand in their documents what they actually need to obtain entry to Australia. Check people's documentation before they leave the embassy. Put a big sign up at the form counter showing what they need to bring in with their fee, for example, permission letters, bank statements, health certificates, letters of reference, shoe size. Or at least give them the opportunity to get extra documentation to you without having to reapply and paying what is, I feel, an exorbitant amount of money all over again. Because it's not just reapplying for the visas that is going to cost them extra money, they now have to change flight dates, hotel bookings and all the other arrangements that are made for an overseas trip.
But then I know this not just an Australian Embassy thing. A niece of my husband was refused a tourist visa from the American embassy because they'd heard she was engaged to be married.
MARTINA ZAINAL
Jakarta