The Australian passport is now among the top five most powerful [based on visa-free access to countries], according to the latest rankings, which also show a Southeast Asian nation has retained its top spot. Here’s how our little blue book fared.
Yeah, that is very silly. The usual convention when you have a tie for a ranking is to skip the appropriate number of rankings afterwards. Probably deliberate so that more countries’ media picks up the story because their country has a high ranking.
Also, hats off to Henley & Partners for somehow convincing the media that a very straightforward ranking needs to be a brand-named ‘index’. They don’t even compile the data! They just take it from IATA.
Full rankings and more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henley_Passport_Index