Did Tony Abbott make our border force crabby?

My purple-ink entry card. In my opinion, okay for colour, but fail on penmanship

After the warm and fuzzy post about Samuel and Poor John and their clasped hands, I have grumpy news to report.

Yesterday, for the first time ever, I encountered an extremely rude member of Australia’s ‘official’ airport welcoming committee (immigration). She was behaving rudely to incoming travellers. I was horrified and embarrassed.

An elderly Chinese couple were on the receiving end of her grumpiness. They may have had Australian passports, but it was obvious that English was not their first language and paperwork was not their strong point.

When I was next in line to go through border control, the couple was off to the side, and had just finished filling out their entry cards. I let them in ahead of me.

Nope, said the border officer gruffly, these aren’t complete. You haven’t done the back, she said tapping the card angrily. It was easy to see that they were confused and distressed, but she waved them away to get on with the job.

I was next and was soon to learn that I had committed my own special crime. I can’t accept this. It’s done in purple ink. You have to do it in blue or black. My explanation that my blue pen had run out of ink on the plane, which was true, was rejected.

Do it again, she ordered, and as I picked up a pen from the counter and unconsciously put it in my mouth, she added with a finger wag, and get that pen out of your mouth. Who knows how many people have handled it!

So I spit out the pen and moved to the ‘Group W bench’ with the Chinese couple—if you don’t understand that reference, listen to Arlo Guthrie’s song Alice’s Restaurant.

I started to re-do an entry card. Mind you, crabby Border Force woman—she was no lady—did not offer me a blank card, but I had miraculously taken two when they were passed out on the plane.

But as I scrawled my black-ink version—hey, if I was going to get done for a violation it should have been for poor penmanship—the Chinese couple stepped forward to present their cards once again.

Nope, nope, still not right, still not complete, she said tapping the card again and not explaining what still needed to be done. The man was so flustered and then came the official’s last snide comment, almost under her breath, but I heard it and understood it.

Surely you can fill out the form right. The last Chinese guy could do it right, and he was a ‘real’ Chinese. Didn’t even have an Australian passport.

I could have slapped her silly, but then I’d be reporting from jail, perhaps even solitary confinement.

But the saga continues. We had dinner with a large group of friends tonight and I heard a similar story from someone who had recently received a similar ‘welcome’ from our front-line at the airport. Same nasty spiel, but a different person.

I can’t help but think the surly and unwelcoming manner stems from Tony Abbott—our mean-hearted and recently ‘deposed’ prime minister.

He renamed our immigration officers as the Australian Border Force and put them into military-style uniforms. And all at a cost of $10 million.

I hope this gruff attitude is short-lived. It’s a sad change from the welcomes I’ve received in Australian airports in the past.

Louise, one of our exchange students from France, summed it up well. She remembers that her arrival in Australia a few years back was one of the nicest she’d ever experienced.

She had something to compare to. When she arrived in the USA when she was 14, she was interrogated as to why she was travelling there on her own. She was on her way to visit relatives.

A year later and at age 15, she was coming on her own to Canberra for a year and she rather expected similar treatment. But she remembers fondly that the immigration officer opened her passport, checked her visa, added a stamp and with a big smile said, Louise, welcome to Australia.

Seriously, it’s not that hard to be nice.

P.S. I’m embarrassed to admit that I did not stop to help the elderly couple complete their cards. I should have and would have if we had not already been running late.

P.P.S. Oh, and a comment about those damn entry cards and Poor John’s experience. He had gone ahead of me. We both have ‘smart’ passports. His in-built smart chip still works and mine doesn’t, so he was cleared by a machine and not a person. No one ever looked at the offending purple ink on his entry card.

So I wonder whether anyone will ever look at my black-ink version besides the crab-puss at the immigration counter (she only glanced at it to make sure it was done in black or blue). I still have the purple version and share it here as evidence.