For anyone that has seen the TV show "Border Security Australia" can relate to, Australia’s Border Force is a busy group. They have some of the strictest import policies of any country I have ever been to and seem to be very sensitive about you bringing really anything in.
I am a smoker, but the 25 cigarettes that you are allowed to bring into this country is a joke for anyone with a 20 year habit, and I am not at all interested in paying what they charge for a pack of smokes over here so I simply decided to not smoke at all while I am here. So far I’ve been fine.
Anyway, this is not about my smoking. It is how I have never had my privacy violated or been insulted by a government official in such a polite manor. Let me tell what it is like to deal with Australia’s Border Force.
I have no idea why I was selected. Perhaps it was because I had never been to the country, perhaps it was because I had just come from Thailand and am just the right age for them to be a bit concerned about if I am bold enough to try to smuggle anything in. Perhaps because immigration all over the world frequently have problems scanning my passport since I intentionally destroy the RFID chips contained in most country’s passports. It doesn’t matter what the reason is but I was selected to have my bags thoroughly searched and have a bunch of pressing questions that have nothing to do with my visiting Australia at all asked of me.
I think that it is absurd that Customs of any country require me to answer question about what it is I do for a living and what it is that I have chosen to not live in my home country, because it doesn’t friggin matter. I do not owe you this information at all in order to visit Australia. I was approved for a visa online before I arrived and you are not immigration… you are Customs.
She was pleasant the entire time but I see right through this s**t, she is playing “good cop, bad cop” but with just one person. I was not rude to her either, because it is really difficult to be rude to someone that is being really nice to you, even if they are completely emptying your bags and asking the same questions over and over again to try to catch you in a lie.
She went through all of my bag thoroughly, and when discovering my Vietnamese, Singaporean, andThai money, she said “you have a lot of money here – you can’t bring more than $10,000 into Australia” which was probably the most retarded, yet friendly thing she had said. She works in customs but has no idea that 4.5 million Vietnamese Dong is worth about $180.
there are other currencies in the world besides AUD and USD
Upon discovering my visa paperwork for Thailand for my upcoming 1-year visa, she removed it from the folder and started to screw around with it and this is where I got into trouble. At the beginning of the inquisition she told me that I am not allowed to touch anything while she is searching” but this is where I broke protocol. These documents that she is now treating like it was some papers from a trash can are in fact originals of very important documents. They are the only copies in existence, and if damaged I will not be able to return to Thailand nor will I be able to get other copies. I don’t really want to go into exact details but I said that “if you damage any of that you will f**k my ability to leave this country and get back to my dog. You must be very careful." I also stopped her from continuing to shuffle through these documents in her uncaring authoritarian manor.
I also decided that this was a good time to tell her that “if you are looking for contraband, go ahead and look for that, you wont find it. Not because I hid it really well, but because it isn’t in there… what contraband could you possibly be looking for inside of my irreplaceable visa documentation?”
This is when other, extremely polite members of the Border Force came over and then they agreed that they need to see every page of the a-4 papers but they would allow me to handle it. Thanks a lot guys.
So we flipped through 100 pages of documents, most of which were in Thai which none of them can read and after the first 10 pages or so I refused to translate and started to loose my cool. So I asked again “what could possibly be written on here in another language that would be illegal to import? Also, since I am the only one out of the 4 of us that can read Thai, how do you even know that what I am saying to you is true?”
So this is when the papers were put back. Then all of my clothes, which had previously been impeccably organized, were shoved back into my suitcase just wherever and I was told that I could leave.
I refused to leave until I had repacked my bag in the exact manor it was before. I sincerely hope that I inconvenienced them to some degree because in the meantime, my friend (who is Australian) was outside wondering what the hell happened to me.
The point of this story is that while I am happy they are polite and ask questions completely unrelated to the fact that they are being aholes and attempt to get me to like them it doesn’t change that they are being aholes that are abusing their power.
Once my bag was open and it was determined that I only have clothes, a computer, and some documents in my bag here is how you can streamline the process: Have a drug and bomb sniffing dog give the bags a once over and then once all that comes up negative fk right the fk off. Maybe use some technology to your advantage rather than going through all the bags by hand. Putting people through intense interviews just because you are a power-hungry a**hole that was probably picked on in school doesn’t mean that it is at all right for you to treat people that way.
My experience was a bad one, and just because you are polite and smile doesn't mean you can abuse someone for no reason. You are a bunch of asshats that enjoy abusing strangers and that is f**ked up. I expected more of your Australia. I honestly did.