Queue frozen at Sydney passport office as wait times show no sign of improvement

It was seven degrees at 4am on Tuesday when Nadine Bolton and her husband joined the queue at the Sydney passport office.

The Daily Telegraph reported on Tuesday that more staff and streamlined processes would were introduced in the hope of cutting the wait time from six hours to 90 minutes by the end of the week.

The source told the newspaper that similar changes introduced in Melbourne had resulted in wait times being cut from four hours to just 60 minutes. The moves are set to coincide with a number of new appointments announced last week including 320 call centre workers and 300 processing staff set to start this week.

On the ground, however, there is still very little reprieve from the cold, long waiting lines in sight. At around 8am on Thursday morning the lines at the Sydney office appeared to be frozen with very little movement taking place.

Bar worker, Ben Luton skipped a shift to make the journey from Wollongong in a desperate last ditch attempt to get his passport ahead of a trip to the Netherlands on Friday.

Last week, the assistant minister for foreign affairs, Tim Watts, said the wait times were due to a lack of foresight and planning from the previous government. However attempts to remedy the situation have failed to translate into faster and more efficient processing times.

Frustration with the system was rife among people in the queue. Sales and marketing professional, Ravinder Vashisht, said the inefficiencies started right at the door.