Dear Mr Murphy

Australia Post — petition request for a unique postcode for Bedourie

Thank you for your letter dated 1 March 2011, concerning a petition submitted for the Committee ' s consideration regarding the allocation of a unique postcode for the town of Bedourie in Queensland.

Under the Australian Postal Corporation Act 1989 Australia Post is responsible for the day-to-day running of the organisation, including all decisions relating to the postal network. As far as practicable it is required to perform its functions in a manner consistent with sound commercial practice.

Australia Post has advised that in the majority of cases, it allocates postcodes that cover an area greater than one locality. Postcodes are assigned for internal delivery purposes and correspond to the delivery centres (or offices) from which mail deliveries are made.

Australia Post has noted that the Department of Environment and Resource Management in Queensland is responsible for gazetting locality names and boundaries. Bedourie is a gazetted locality that includes the areas of Amaroo, Boulia, MM Min, Sturt, Toko,

Warenda and Wills. All of these locations have been assigned the postcode 4829, which has been in place for almost 26 years.

Australia Post has also advised that it takes a great deal of care in ensuring that the postcode assigned to a locality, or group of localities, is the one that provides the most efficient mail delivery service. From time to time, Australia Post may make changes to postcodes on the basis of providing either an improved mail delivery service to customers or some other operational advantage.

I am informed that Australia Post has carefully considered the Friends of Bedourie ' s request for the allocation of a unique postcode for Bedourie but has not agreed to the request. In this case, the proposed postcode change would not lead to any improvement in the standard of Australia Post ' s mail delivery service. The change could also cause confusion from an operational, processing and customer perspective, as correspondents would most likely use two different postcodes (i.e. the old and the new).

I trust this information will be of assistance.

from the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy