Passport dramas

Some of you may have been *privileged* to hear me bewailing my passport issues. To cut a long story short, my passport was in my bag so I would not lose it. Unfortunately my bag and I travel a lot of places, frequently in the rain. This led to an unhappy outcome for the passport despite my best efforts with the press in the bindery. It is looking a little sad, a bit miserable, and the ink on some of the unfilled pages has bled. Naturally they are unfilled, I never go anywhere.
I have been trying for the last while to sort out whether the passport is still useable. So I finally managed to get to the Department of Internal Affairs - don't you just think the work place that plays together stays together?- in Dunedin. I was told back up, we don't actually deal with passports, we can tell you nothing. Try contacting Christchurch. What bloody use is that? My passport and I will present ourselves at Chch? To be told (since the decision rests with the official sighting the passport at the airport) that they don't know if it would be acceptable. No doubt they would see the document and see a nice profit of $300, plus the opportunity to change it for one that would expire in 5 years, not ten.
Isn't it refreshing I can moan about the government as well as work?
Anyway, I have decided I will risk it, travel to Rarotonga, and hope they let me in. How concerned they would be over 6 days I have no idea, surely using the same currency counts for something!
So I'll let everyone know if I am stopped at the airport and treated like a criminal. It would be a refreshing change, to be thought of as an important, potentially threatening individual rather than ignored. I'd feel like underground.
Besides, at least I would have a new topic of conversation.