Photo: RNZ
Despite plans to fix long wait times for New Zealand passports, the situation is as dire as it was when the borders re-opened last year.
There were currently more than 37,000 passports waiting to be processed and it takes a month, on average, for each to be processed and mailed out.
The Department of Internal Affairs said it was again facing a surge of applications. It was a similar situation to this time last year.
In March, June, July, and August 2022 it took 19, 24, 21, and 17 working days respectively for applications to be processed.
Over the rest of 2022 that wait time dropped back down to eight days, below the government target of 10 days.
In February of 2023 the processing times started to climb back up. It was now taking at least 19 days to process a new passport, which is as bad as it was when the borders reopened.
"July and August 2023 have had the longest average wait time for any month in the last 12 months," Department of Internal Affairs general manager of services and access Julia Wootton said.
The department processed 42,470 passports in June and 42,637 passports in July 2023.
In June 2022 Internal Affairs was dealing with similar volumes of applications and said the usual 10-day wait was about a month, with further delays for delivery.
At the time the service delivery and operations deputy chief executive said there hadn't been a backlog like this since 1992.
Despite the borders reopening more than 18 months ago, the department is blaming the increased processing time on a number of factors.
"These include a sustained increase in the monthly volume of applications after the New Zealand borders reopened," it said.
It also blamed an increase of Covid-19 community cases which had reduced staffing due to isolation requirements.
These were the same reasons DIA used a year ago, the last time delays surged.
It also, once again, said they were training and recruiting new staff - as well as bringing in former passports staff from across the department to help assist.
It said, just like a year ago, that members of the team were doing additional hours, including weekends.
The Department of Internal Affairs had to downsize its workforce during the pandemic because people were not needing passports renewed with travel heavily restricted.
When the borders reopened the department was caught off guard and had to bring people in fast, but that took time and training to see an actual reduction in wait times.
This fixed the delays temporarily - but it once again was trying to hire staff and train them up to meet demand.
