US embassy cable - 05CANBERRA1047

Disclaimer: This site has been first put up 15 years ago. Since then I would probably do a couple things differently, but because I've noticed this site had been linked from news outlets, PhD theses and peer rewieved papers and because I really hate the concept of "digital dark age" I've decided to put it back up. There's no chance it can produce any harm now.

AUSTRALIA ON TRACK FOR VWP REQUIREMENTS

Identifier: 05CANBERRA1047
Wikileaks: View 05CANBERRA1047 at Wikileaks.org
Origin: Embassy Canberra
Created: 2005-06-17 02:54:00
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Tags: CVIS CPAS AS
Redacted: This cable was not redacted by Wikileaks.
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.


 
UNCLAS CANBERRA 001047 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR CA/VO/F/P 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: CVIS, CPAS, AS 
SUBJECT: AUSTRALIA ON TRACK FOR VWP REQUIREMENTS 
 
REF: SECSTATE 111324 
 
1.  (U) Post demarched Australian Department of Foreign 
Affairs and Trade (DFAT) Passport Systems and Technology 
Director John Osbourne on June 15 regarding the Visa Waiver 
Program (VWP) biometric passport requirements (reftel). 
Osbourne identified DFAT as the responsible ministry and 
designated himself as the point of contact for VWP 
coordination.  His details are below: 
 
John Osbourne 
Director, Passport Systems & Technology Section 
Passports Branch 
Tel:  61-2-6261-1035 
Fax:  61-2-6261-1038 
Email:  john.osbourne@dfat.gov.au 
 
2.  (U) Osbourne affirmed that Australia was on the path to 
full compliance, having issued machine-readable passports 
(MRP) since 1982 and digital photographs in passports since 
1992.  He also saw no obstacle to the initial October 26, 
2005 deadline for digitized chips, which were in progress. 
 
3.  (SBU) Osbourne did express frustration about the 
recurrent extension of deadlines to accommodate problems 
other VWP countries had with compliance, especially since 
Australia had invested large sums of money to meet the 
initial deadlines.  He remarked that, had our demarche 
occurred before the GOA budget was announced in May, there 
would not have been funding for the implementation of 
digitized chips by October 2005.  Parliament would not have 
authorized the funds knowing that an extension for the chips 
had been made for October 2006. 
 
STANTON 

Latest source of this page is cablebrowser-2, released 2011-10-04