There’s something deeply embarrassing about watching an online discussion turn into a collective therapy session about the quality of Australian passports. Yet here we are in 2025, and apparently the most reliable way to keep our travel documents flat is to place them under a cookbook and hope for the best.

I stumbled across this bizarre conversation the other day, and it struck a nerve. Here we are, paying close to $400 for a passport renewal (or well over $300 for a new adult passport), and the bloody things arrive pre-warped like they’ve already completed a round-the-world trip in someone’s back pocket. The fact that someone needed to ask for advice on keeping their passport flat – and received hundreds of responses – tells you everything you need to know about the state of government procurement in this country.