Committee chairman and Labor MP Nick Champion said the levy "could add as little as $3 to $5 to every airline ticket". Source: AFP
AUSTRALIANS going overseas should pay a new "travel levy" to meet the rising cost of fellow travellers getting into trouble, according to a parliamentary committee.
A report backed by Labor, the Coalition and the Greens said the huge increase in Australians needing help in foreign lands was eating into the cost of running formal diplomatic operations.
It called for a combination of increased passport fees and an indexed travel levy to pay for consular services.
It said there could be a lower levy for people who had travel insurance.
One in five Australians going overseas is not insured and others, such as the elderly or pregnant, may not be fully covered.
Committee chairman and Labor MP Nick Champion said the levy "could add as little as $3 to $5 to every airline ticket".
The number of consular cases handled by Australian diplomats has soared by 50 per cent over the past five years to about 200,000 a year.
This includes welfare issues, "whereabouts" inquiries, help for people arrested or detained, medical emergencies, deaths, emergency loans for travellers and notarial services.
But funding and staff had remained almost static. The report said this was "unsustainable", and diverting resources to meet consular demands reduced the ability to represent Australia overseas.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said it did not consider it appropriate to charge people for help, but admitted Australians travelling overseas had "unrealistic expectations".
The former secretary of the department, Dennis Richardson, who now heads Defence, told the committee "some people think that when they go offshore, the rule of law does not apply to them while they are offshore".
The Lowy Institute backed the fee, saying looking after the welfare of Australians when they were travelling seemed "a perfectly worthy reason to charge people".
A day after release of the Asian White Paper, the report also slammed Australia's diplomatic network as "seriously deficient" and called for 20 new embassies to be opened.
It said Australia was "punching below our weight" with only 95 diplomatic posts when the OECD average was 133 posts.
phillip.hudson@news.com.au
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