RIVERINA towns will be among the hardest hit if the Department of Foreign Affairs cease their contract with Australia Post to process passports, critics claim.
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The federal government could revert to strictly online services for passport applications once the contract expires in June 2017.
In doing so, locals would have to travel to a major city to have their passport application dealt with face-to-face.
Local Gretchen Sleeman, who is up in arms at the proposed changes, said ageing residents are again being given the “short end of the stick”.
“If you have to set aside a whole day to travel to the actual department, it costs money and it’s very difficult for senior residents who aren’t well off with technology,” she said.
“It’s a brick wall for a lot of people to get through; it's an impediment.
“When you have the amount of deception and wrongdoing that goes on with the internet, you have to worry what kind of security will protect people’s information.”
She added that by abolishing Australia Post’s passport application services, the federal government will burden local governments.
“People will have to go to the libraries and then the libraries will have to allocate a lot more time to help people through that,” she said.
“It's pushing the work onto library staff and the smaller regional councils that are going to be suffering.”
The loss of the passports contact for Australia Post would be another huge blow for the company, which is struggling in the digital age.
According to the chair of the Licensed Post Office Group, NSW’s Angela Cramp, post offices across Australia have processed 94 per cent of passport applications over the past 33 years.
Last year more than 90 per cent of standard applications were processed within 10 days, with online applications taking longer.
Australia Post has provided passport application services on behalf of the Department of Foreign Affairs since 1983.
