I have been subscribing to The Echo since my daughter moved to Mullumbimby late last year and I visited her over Christmas. Your newspaper is so informative and encouraging for locals and gives the rest of Australia some insight into how beautiful the area is and some of the challenges the people have faced, particularly this year.
That brings me to what some might consider to be a first world problem but for me I think it is a right of our citizens to have their own passport – proof of identity, which is not only used for travelling to fun places overseas.
My daughter’s passport was severely damaged in the floods and she has been trying to replace it. However, it is impossible to get through to anyone at the passport office on the phone – when you call them you are put through a series of number clicking only to be told that they are too busy to take your call and then they hang up. A person can’t just go to the passport office because they expect people to process applications online first and go through Australia Post. This is not supposed to be the process for damaged passports since she has her old one but cannot use it.
She decided to just apply for a new passport as though it were lost – however, as I said, this has to go through Australia Post, but they won’t do it because she needs an original copy of her birth certificate (which I have now decided to mail to her as I am in Victoria). Australia Post tried to help when she went there but they were on the phone to the passport office waiting for over an hour – no response on the phone.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
