FROM 1 January, Australians will now pay more than $400 for a 10-year passport.

Of course the five-year version is cheaper, but still outrageously expensive.

This means that our hidden nation at the bottom of the Pacific now has the world’s most expensive passport, leading Mexico at $353.90 and New Zealand at only $193.72 (all figures in Australian dollars).

Even the USA only charges $252.72.

I have been travelling to these nations regularly for many years now, so I keep an eye out on how tourists and business travelers are taxed for the privilege of visiting their shores.

The January price increase follows an earlier passport price hike in July, where prices rose by around 15 percent.

At the time the Treasurer said the increase would raise some $349 million over the next three years.

A nice little earner indeed.

One which we are told is needed in order to cover the rising cost of producing your little blue-coloured booklet which you can’t leave the country without.

So, what did our government say about this 15 percent increase?

They called it a modest price increase and not a back door tax grab.

Well, I’m excited about that, I must say.

My understanding is that our Reserve Bank is trying to reduce the annual rate of inflation to between two and three percent, so why has the government increased one of its fees by 15 percent?

Any semblance of opinion that our government is trying to manage our economy in a productive and intelligent way has long since been lost to my reckoning by moving in the opposite direction to our Reserve Bank.

By John BLACKBOURN