Worthless passports

Regarding the worthlessness of Maltese passports issued in Canberra, I would like to add my story to illustrate our frustrations.

My Maltese passport expired some months after I had a car accident just days before Christmas of 1997. With tickets on the dining table and two teenage children all hyped up about visiting Paris for a few days before landing in Malta in time for Christmas, they were shattered at the realisation that they couldn't travel to visit their cousins this time around.

After a number of holidays in the Asian-Pacific region I decided to revisit Europe and my family in Malta. However, I had read about the problems of renewing my Maltese passport in Australia, so I decided to travel on my Australian passport. It was quite a breeze, presenting my Australian passport only once in six weeks in Europe, before landing in Malta in August. It grieved me to no end, presenting an Australian passport at Customs, both in London and in Malta, "non-EU passport holders", when I could have proudly presented my Maltese/European passport at least in Malta, if not elsewhere. There I stood, in a line of "aliens", speaking Maltese to a fellow Maltese, but not entering Malta on a Maltese passport which is my birthright. Every European Tom, Dick and Harry, not to mention Ljuba, Maurizio and Andreas, went ahead of me on a European passport. Then it hit me. What a joke! I must be dreaming.

When will the Maltese bureaucrats wake up to themselves that there are Maltese citizens who are fiercely proud of their citizenship, their language and their heritage? What must it take to ensure that Maltese living overseas can access an efficient machine to issue them with a passport speedily, especially for people who've already held a passport that merely expired?

We love spending our hard-earned money in Malta but "it takes two to tango". And if this "one-stop public service 'shop'" is going to happen at the same speed as the inquiry into the "Safi debacle", we shall all be dead before it bears fruit.