they will soon face the same issues, at least they will tell you when you try to book that risk of entry denial is high, always best to find out before you leave the country…..reality is the border run is slowly becoming a thing of the past , the ETA will kill it once and for all.
Don’t hand passport to a third party is safest option, immigration have controls in place and you get a receipt when you leave it for visa renewal. It’s just overnight anyway.
It’s an issue related to the change in payment process, pension used to be collected from the post office every week, always remember my Nan doing it, with auto payments now they have to avoid all the scammers out there which I fully support I wonder what age this kicks in, bit of a pain for us living offshore……