It was only a massage. But the young Australian man
found that a ‘difficult’ situation arose whilst visiting the Bangkok massage
parlour. The story goes that he was less than happy about his experience and
decided to trash the entire parlour, resulting in his arrest and being subsequently
charged by Thai police for wilful damage, assault and threatening behaviour.
As an Australian citizen, the man then sought
assistance from the consular section of the Australian Embassy in terms of
resolving his predicament and legal costs. Not cheap in a foreign country.
This story is only one of many tales about Australians
getting into serious trouble whilst overseas, and then seeking the services –
at no cost to themselves – of Australian consular officials to assist them.
And as reported recently in The West Australian (‘Embassies
may rebuff Aussie pests’ Tuesday 3rd December) assistance from
our overseas consulates may no longer be ours ‘as of right’.
Apart from officials routinely handling enquiries such
as, ‘Can you help me with feeding my dog whilst I am away on holidays?’ or, ‘Will
the sand in Egypt affect my asthma?’, Australian consular officials are finding
themselves trapped by consecutive governments cutting back the number of
diplomatic staff in overseas postings, whilst the numbers of Australians
travelling overseas is booming like never before.
Last year Australians made an astonishing eight
million overseas visits and over 50% of all Australians now hold a current
passport, with 1.7 million new passports being issued in 2013 alone.
Bali remains our favourite destination with 890,000
Aussies travelling to their paradise island in the past twelve months. Over
380,000 visitors were from WA, and many of these tourists were young people
heading-off overseas for the first or second time. And herein lies the danger:
In past years almost all overseas travel was arranged by an experienced travel
agent, yet today it’s just a simple task to ‘jump online’ and book your low-cost
airline ticket and hotel within minutes.
With Bali only three hours away, what is often
overlooked are the ‘essentials’ such as travel insurance and importantly,
advice that when overseas you are subject to the laws and rules of a foreign
country. Sadly on too many occasions this lack of knowledge, or just plain lack
of respect, sees Australians either in trouble with the law or injured as a
result of their own stupidity, ignorance or bad behaviour.
It is at this point when the local Australian
Consulate is often contacted for assistance. And Australian consulate officials
– including our consulate in Bali who deals with hundreds of enquiries every
month - have a very good record of prompt and
efficient service to Australians in need. But with this boom in travel,
combined with a reduction in the number of consular staff based overseas,
something had to give.
This dilemma has now lead Australia’s foreign minister,
Julie Bishop to examine whether Australians, who get themselves into trouble overseas
as a direct result of their bad behaviour, should contribute to the cost
incurred by our government in order to assist them.
Last year, Greenpeace activist, Colin Russell was a
case-in-point as he obviously felt he had the ‘entitlement’, as an Australian
passport holder, to unlimited support from our government after being arrested
for illegally climbing onto a Russian oil rig in the Arctic as part of a
protest. Despite Russell being a paid employee of Greenpeace, the Australian
Government and the foreign minister spent significant amounts of time and
taxpayers funds in order to secure his release from a Russian jail-which they
successfully did.
As to whether Russell had a ‘moral issue’ to fight is
a separate matter. The question is should the Australian taxpayer fork-up every
time a protestor seeks to take-on a foreign country?
Likewise, back in Bali should a drunken tourist from
Perth, who ends up being arrested for fighting and abusing local staff, have
the right to expect the Australian Government to not only get him out of jail
but to also cover all his costs associated with the crime he committed?
This issue is not about taking a hard line against
Australians who through no fault of their own find themselves in serious
trouble whilst overseas. Most Australians rightly would expect that our
government should be ready to help our citizens where they can; remembering of
course that our consular officials have no power to override local laws or to
direct police.
As foreign minister Julie Bishop reminded us this week,
when releasing the Consular Assistance Strategy Paper that we need to modify
our expectations as to what the government can provide for people who travel
overseas and get into trouble. Furthermore, when the predicament is caused by
their own misbehaviour or recklessness, then perhaps they should make a
financial contribution to getting themselves out of trouble.
A harder line by our government on this issue is well
overdue and it may also force many travelling Aussies – young and old - to take
responsibly for their own actions whilst overseas; starting with acting
responsibly and respectfully whist a guess of another country.
Ross Taylor AM
is the President of
the WA-based Indonesia Institute (Inc)
(This article originally appeared in The West Australian Newspaper - 8th December 2014)
