I am writing from Melbourne, Australia as I am frustrated with the services and support provided by the Malaysian Consulate in Canberra, Australia. My family have had the unfortunate incident of having our house burglarised and all (the entire family's) our documents ie, Malaysian passports, birth certificates, Malaysian driving licences, our MyKads, marriage certificates have all been stolen.

We immediately reported the incident to the Malaysian Consulate in Canberra and was passed on to the person in-charge, a Mr Haa Doan. He must be the most unpleasant person we have come across and encountered during our stay in Australia so far. We told him our circumstances and asked him for the procedure to apply for a replacement travel document and he advised that he will immediately send us the necessary application forms.

We supplied him with our correspondence address and contact details. He then reprimanded us for the way we kept our documents at home which was uncalled for. He kept insisting that we have to fly back to Malaysia to reapply for all our documents but how could we when we have just lost our passports?

The documents came only four weeks later and we sent off our completed forms and the necessary certified documents. On Sept 13, we decided to check with the Malaysian Consulate on the status of our application. My husband who called was told that Haa was on leave. My husband was not happy and called again, and this time was told that Haa was not on leave and the call was passed to him.

He was very annoyed with my husband and irritated when asked about the status of our applications. He said it is still with him in his office which meant that the applications have been sitting at the consulate for more than a month. He said he was sick and that he just returned from back to work. The question is does the consulate stop functioning because Haa is on sick leave? Is there no one to take over his responsibility when he is away from the office?

When my husband asked why wasn't it sent off to the Immigration Department in Kuala Lumpur, he said that they do not do daily postings to Malaysia and that it was done only once a month! Asked how long will the whole process take, Haa said that he was not sure, maybe it would be six months or more and that it was entirely up to the Kuala Lumpur Immigration Office.

These kind of answers are definitely not reassuring for a whole family who is at their wits end at having lost all their critical documents. The passports are required to fly back to Malaysia to reapply for the other documents and looks like we are at a loss as to when we will get our passports approved or when they finally make their way back to the Kuala Lumpur Immigration Office. Is Australia so distant that there is only one mail service a month?

The next critical question is has the consulate reported the loss of our passports to the Malaysian Immigration so that there is a record that our passports have been reported stolen and in the event of unlawful use, they will be able to put a stop to it.

We in Australia feel very sad with the support given by the Malaysian Consulate. Aren't they there to give us the very support we need in a foreign country in times of need. Can someone from Putrajaya please help us out on this critical issue? We are getting nowhere with Haa at the Malaysian Consulate in Canberra.