Mike Symon (Deakin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to congratulate the residents who live in and around Elmhurst and Bungalook Roads in Bayswater North, in my electorate, for helping me save their local postbox. It was one of my first local campaigns. It came up pretty much before I had even been declared elected. The fact is that local residents, many of them elderly and many of them without many community services, were confronted by Australia Post demanding that they increase usage of their postbox or have it taken away. Many of these people have lived in the area for a long time and have grown old with the area, and to get a letter from Australia Post telling them to cross a main road and walk a kilometre uphill to a postbox was not acceptable to many. So they asked me what I could do to help and I was happy to take up that little task.

We ran a bit of a media campaign and then we started a local petition. Surprisingly, even though Australia Post said so few people were using the postbox, we had over 200 local residents sign that petition. It was back in my office within a period of three or four days. I must say Australia Post representatives were happy to listen to our representations, and they did come out and inspect the site with me. After that we decided that the best decision, because of vandalism more than low usage, was to move the postbox under a street light. Australia Post actually did that and I do congratulate them for that. The local residents of course were happy.

To explain a little bit more: Bayswater North is a suburb stuck between suburbs. It does not have its own local amenities. There is a petrol station which sells a small amount of food but there are no real shops. There are no community facilities of any sort. When residents have very little by way of community facilities, they certainly do arc up when things like that happen, and I am happy to say that in this case they were successful. In fact, many people associate the suburb of Bayswater North with a Bunnings store because a lot of the suburb is light industrial, but there is a real community there among the residents of Bungalook and Elmhurst roads. Many go across to the Glen Park Community Centre, which provides a lot of services to these people. The campaign was actually a very good win for the local community. I congratulate both them and Australia Post.