Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) Australia Post as per its Community Service Obligations, is required to achieve timely mail deliveries in all parts of Australia, not just the major capital cities;

(b) residents in regional towns and cities across Australia are not receiving mail for up to six days, with mail routes routinely left unprocessed due to insufficient staff at regional mail centres; and

(c) constituents have contacted the offices of regional Members, citing regular occurrences of late mail affecting people who depend on reliable mail services; and

(2) calls on the Minister for Communications to:

(a) ensure that the current cuts by attrition at regional mail centres are reversed, suspending moves by Australia Post and the Government to abandon regional Australia by transferring mail sorting services to capital cities;

(b) restore next day delivery services from regional centres; and

(c) ensure the security of jobs and safe working conditions for regional postal workers.

I want to highlight what is happening within Australia Post, particularly in Victoria and New South Wales at the moment, and some of the impact that that is having on regional communities such as the one I represent in the federal seat of Ballarat. Plans have been announced internally by Australia Post that they are to cut next-day delivery service for regional centres. That is leading to delays in the critical delivery of post within my own electorate but reports are coming in from other areas that that is the case as well. In a number of instances being reported in some of the smaller towns across my district it is taking up to six to seven days for them to receive their mail. That is not the service that they have been used to.

This is of deep concern to those of us who live in regional Australia, with Australia Post's decisions impacting directly on the services within my community. Australians should not be treated differently because they live outside metropolitan areas in regional centres nor should they be treated differently if they live in more isolated communities, particularly in some of our more dispersed states. I fear that what we are seeing, unfortunately, from Australia Post is just the tip of the iceberg for our communities.

There is no more important obligation for a national mail service than to ensure it supports and properly services those people in the more isolated and geographically disadvantaged regions of our nation. Regional residents should not lose a national service that the rest of Australia receives. There are many residents who are reporting, as I said, that they are waiting up to six days for their mail.

The Communication Workers Union have written to me about their experiences of what is happening with staff within regional distribution centres. The decision by Australia Post, in essence, to close, almost, but certainly to see a substantial reduction in staff at, the regional distribution centre in Ballarat and have mail, instead of being sorted in Ballarat, done in Dandenong, several kilometres away, and then shipped back to Ballarat—including mail that needs to go to Melbourne—is causing significant delays. That is affecting residents in Morwell, Bendigo, Seymour and Geelong. In New South Wales, the impact is being felt in Tamworth, Bathurst, Wagga Wagga and Albury, and they are certainly being affected by the move away from next-day delivery.

I have received emails from our local U3A who, for 30 years, have been relying on the Australia Post service and are concerned about what has happened to their mail service. Individuals involved in U3A have found that their mail is not getting through, and that invitations to events are arriving after the event has occurred—and, unfortunately, in my own office, that is exactly the experience that I am having. In the 12 years since I became the member, that has not been the case; Australia Post has always delivered excellent service. But the latest instance was that an invitation to the birthday party of a good friend, a member of the Australian Labor Party who is incredibly unwell, was received in my office two days after the event occurred, despite it being posted seven days previously.

We have also had representations from constituents who have a particular arrangement with their pharmacist and their prescribing doctor to receive their prescriptions by mail. For example, a prescription that was franked and stamped at the time that it was dispatched from the GP's surgery on its very short journey to the patient, only a kilometre away, was received seven days later.

As to what is happening in Australia Post at the moment: I understand the cost pressures that they are under; I also understand the growth in parcel delivery, and what is happening in that side of the business. But the core business of Australia Post is to deliver mail. There are many older people who do not use the internet and email and so rely on a mail service. The fact that Australia Post, at the moment, in many of our regions, thinks that it can deliver a service while slowly closing regional distribution centres, by walking away from next-day delivery, really is incredibly concerning. They need to look at what their delivery mechanisms are and why they are not able to meet the next-day delivery standards within regional communities. I certainly hope that the Minister for Communications, who I know does care deeply about the delivery in regional communities—at least, I hope very much that he does—has a good look at what is happening in Australia Post at the moment. I call on him to reverse what has occurred in the regional communities, certainly in Ballarat, and I know the member for Bendigo will be speaking on a similar matter.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Ballarat. Is the motion seconded?

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bendigo.

Matt Williams (Hindmarsh, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to address the matter of public importance today and show my support for the licensed post offices in my electorate and Australia more widely. Australia Post has a wonderful history in our country but, at a time when post offices around the globe are experiencing great hardship and our own post offices are losing large amounts of money on the letter component of their business, it is obvious to all that Australia Post is going to face challenges in the coming years.

I have met with some of the 22 local licensed post officers to try to help me understand the concerns of local businesses and have received a briefing from the Chief Executive Officer of Australia Post, arranged by the new Minister for Communications. I am happy to say that everyone I have met from Australia Post is looking for ways in which they can save money and work more productively. But this government, which is supportive of all businesses, is considering ways to ensure that they contribute in a self-sustainable way.

As a government business enterprise, Australia Post has a responsibility to manage its business in a commercially and socially sound way. I am told that Australia Post has not made any decisions about the possible changes and the impact any changes to processing and delivery of letters would have on staff. Australia Post is continuing to consult with staff and community stakeholders about how the possible changes may affect employees, local businesses and the community. While stakeholder engagement is always difficult when you have many thousands of agencies and innumerable other interested parties, I strongly encourage Australia Post to work with all stakeholders to take everyone with them on the journey, to ensure they are able to continue to be a great institution and not a drain on the public purse.

Australia Post has been working on ways to further develop its business. We would all have noticed the changes in our local post office. There is now a large retail focus and many more packages. This explosion in the number of packages being handled by Australia Post is largely due to the application programming interface, or API, that Australia Post has developed. Australia Post's great API is well regarded in the web industry as being the easiest to use and integrate, making it the first point of call for most of the new online shops that are being developed every day. We should not underestimate the power of online shopping services in this area, and this is where Australia Post and the post offices have a great deal of potential to grow and further develop by working together for a more sustainable future.

It is very interesting to note that Australia Post has been going through a process of regeneration for a number of years, looking to see how they can work most effectively in this online focused world. While the minister has the discretion to give written directions to Australia Post, this has never been used in our history. But now, less than three months out of office, the member for Ballarat, the shadow minister for health, has come in here demanding that the minister take the necessary actions which she and her colleagues failed to do for six years. The question has to be asked: what were they really doing for six years? Did they not receive the letter that said Australia Post needs some regeneration? Australia Post has a lot of challenges, and we in the coalition will work with Australia Post to try and deliver the best we can.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Whatever we were doing in government over the last six years, one thing that the Rudd and Gillard governments did not face was an Australia Post which was seeking to cut next-day delivery to regional Australians. That is the situation we are facing today. This is a fundamental service for people in regional Australia. I come from regional Australia myself. The idea that next-day delivery is being removed from postal services internal to Geelong is a disgrace. It represents an abandonment by the Abbott government of the people of Geelong within the first couple of months of taking office. This is a prime example of a government which said one thing before the election but has turned out to be a very different government upon being elected. This is one of the first issues which has raised itself within view of the people of Geelong, and there is enormous concern about the decisions and the review that is being put in place by Australia Post.

We now have a situation where the proposal, specifically as it relates to Geelong in terms of giving expression to Australia Post's desire to cut next-day delivery from regional Australia, is that most of the mail that is posted in Geelong will go to Dandenong to be sorted and distributed, even though that mail is going to people within Geelong—that is, a letter will go from Geelong across Port Phillip Bay to Dandenong and will be sorted there and then come back to Geelong. This is an extremely disturbing turn of events, for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is estimated by The Geelong Advertiser that something like 20 million of the 24 million letters that are posted in Geelong each and every year will go to Dandenong to be sorted before they go elsewhere. We are already in a situation where the commitment to next-day delivery for the people of Geelong is not being met. Again, in October The Geelong Advertiser did their own test by putting a number of letters around the Geelong region to see how long it took for them to be delivered. One in four letters in that test did not meet the obligation of next-day delivery, even though that is occurring within Geelong. On top of that, we are now seeing this proposal to have so much of Geelong's mail taken out of the city and its sorting and distribution being done on the other side of Port Phillip Bay.

What that ultimately means is a downgrading of the Geelong mail distribution centre. That is of enormous concern to me as the member for Corio, to the citizens of Geelong and to those people who work at the distribution centre. Jobs in Geelong have been a very important issue over the course of this year—as they always are, but particularly this year with announcements at Ford, Target and more recently Qantas's heavy maintenance at Avalon. So a proposal which will see further jobs cut is, in and of itself, concerning as well.

More fundamentally than that, there is the notion of trying to have a first-rate, productive economy in a regional city in Australia. To have that first-rate, productive economy, we need the same services in relation to our postal delivery that can be enjoyed in Melbourne and Sydney. Having next-day delivery is fundamental to the productivity of any place, and that is what is being sought to be removed from Geelong.

Finally, there is just an element of fairness here. We have a national postal service. We do not have a Melbourne-Sydney postal service; we have a national postal service which should apply in the same way in Geelong, Wollongong, Ballarat and Bendigo as it does in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. What is being proposed by Australia Post now denies that national service being applied in the same way in regional centres such as Geelong. We are being placed in a second-class situation, and that is ultimately not good enough in this day and age. So, with the member for Ballarat, I call on the Minister for Communications to intervene in this matter and have this issue resolved immediately.

Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to speak on this motion before the House today. I just draw this place's attention to a couple of the comments from the member for Ballarat. In her statement she said that Australia Post was 'planning' to cut jobs—I am sure I am quoting her accurately—and that this had resulted in reduced services. In other words, no jobs have been lost, and I have taken the time to ascertain whether jobs have been lost in Ballarat, and there have not been; there has been no cut to jobs. There is nothing wrong with any member in this House standing and being concerned about the potential loss of jobs. I support their right to do that. I have had my own issues with Australia Post in recent times, and we all have a big issue, which I will address in a moment. But it is in fact intellectually dishonest to come into this place and say that services have been reduced because of plans to cut; cuts have not occurred.

The member for Ballarat went on to say that this is the tip of the iceberg, and she is absolutely correct. For the humble piece of mail that has been delivered for over 200 years by Australian postal services, the number of letters that get put in our letterboxes every day peaked in 2008. Something else peaked in 2008, and that was the success of the Labor Party. Since then, both have been in incredible decline. In fact, Australia Post's letter volumes have gone down by 20 per cent, and I think the Labor Party would be delighted if their results had gone down by only 20 per cent, particularly in the Senate. But I leave that aside. What is occurring is just stark.

So let me take you to what is occurring. Digital interference in our daily lives is affecting something that we have all taken for granted: the 4,000-odd faces of Australia Post right around our communities, which we all respect and used to go into. I would say to those sitting in the chamber here today and those listening: when was the last time you went into an Australia Post service, and why? If you go back five or 10 years, it was probably to pay a registration bill or to pay your electricity bill. But more often than not you will be paying those online today; you will not be going there. So they have lost the foot traffic. What you will be going there to do is to pick up a parcel, and that is a fundamental shift in the business.

Australia Post is facing the same dilemma that the high street faced when we ended up with regional shopping centres and that so many other businesses are now grappling with, and that is the digital divide. We still want to be able to walk into our post office, we still want to have that daily service and we still want to have Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong and everywhere else having mail sorted there.

But there is a cost. What I have not heard from the opposition today in putting forward this motion are solutions. Two-thirds of the income of licensed post offices comes from what they receive from the price of the stamp. We could be in here saying that we want to support Australia Post and underpin its primary objective and core business, which is, as was said here, to deliver mail. We can do that by calling on the minister to put up the price of standard delivery of a letter. Perhaps the speakers remaining in this debate would like to put their name to that and say, 'I'm calling on the minister to do that.' I am giving you that opportunity.

Opposition Member:

An opposition member interjecting—

Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take the interjection. What I am saying is that the model is broken. What has worked for 200 years is not going to work for the next 200 years; it is not going to work for the next 20 years. There are 4,000 outlets out there and it behoves us all to work together to come up with solutions. It does not help anyone to come into this place and start throwing bricks at the government and say, 'The Abbott government came to power and they want to get rid of next-day services.' This is just Australia Post having an honest dialogue with people about the challenges of its business model. We all need to be part of that. It is no use just throwing stones. We need to be part of the solution.

If we are part of the solution, then Australia Post has a bright future. It does not have a bright future if we do more of the same. It does not have a bright future if it retains the same model, because the digital divide is going to destroy it. As soon as a business or a government agency can, it will not be delivering mail via your letterbox but doing it digitally because it is cheaper and more efficient. We do not have people walking into Australia Post as they used to and using the same services. We do not have the same letters being delivered.

Instead of moving a motion like this, which passes blame, let us have a motion that asks what we, the government and the opposition, can do together to make sure that Australia Post has a vibrant and viable future. That is what I stand here to be part of. I do not commend the motion to the House.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand today to raise a few issues. I want to make a few comments about how this issue will affect my electorate of Bendigo. Right now, unlike the doom and gloom that we quite often hear in this chamber about other areas, Bendigo, which is in central Victoria, is booming. We have economic growth. It is a vibrant region with a proud history and an exciting future. However, this growth will be under threat if we continue to lose core services. I put Australia Post in the category of core services.

Changes to the current next-day delivery regime will see businesses and households in the Bendigo electorate get a lesser service—a second-rate service—than their city counterparts get from Australia Post. They will also result in job losses. It is fair to say that Australia Post is planning to cut jobs. In fact, in Bendigo they have put out a call for expressions of interest in 10 voluntary redundancies. It is on the cards that these jobs will be lost. Job losses affect the whole community. I strongly believe that we need to share our public sector jobs across the community, including regional Australia. These public sector jobs bring with them public sector wages. That is really important in any economy, just like in Canberra and in Melbourne. If you are going to have public services, the regions should get their fair share of those jobs. Those people can then spend their wages in businesses in the local community. They can share the wealth among different parts of the country.

Apart from the job losses and what they will do to the families concerned and to the community, I am also concerned about the second-rate postal service that the electorate of Bendigo will receive. This is not just about job losses. It is also about people in the country having a lesser service than those in the city. We have to note that the next-day delivery service has been available since 1977, so there is an expectation that it will continue. It is true to say that our standard is that Australia Post will deliver 94 per cent of domestic letters on time. But currently Australia Post is struggling to meet that standard in my electorate. Just like in Geelong and in Ballarat, trials have been done in Bendigo. My office and the Communication Workers Union sent 100 letters back and forth and we struggled to reach the 94 per cent benchmark that has been set by the government for Australia Post.

If services get worse, it will make it hard for local businesses. I want to quote a couple of comments from local businesses in Bendigo. Bendigo Business Council Executive Officer Patrick Falconer said that companies who rely on same day or next day delivery may need to seek alternatives like couriers. That is going to increase the cost of doing business in the regions. We talk about wanting to see our regions grow, yet we keep changing the service delivery and making it harder for them to do business.

Bendigo Community Telco works with suppliers in Melbourne and Sydney and quite often needs paperwork and materials sent back and forth. Delays make it harder for them to do business. If Melbourne gets next day delivery then so should Bendigo. If Sydney gets next day delivery then so should other major regional cities around the country. In this place we talk a lot about productivity and how to improve productivity for businesses, but cutting back regional postal services will only lead to a decrease in productivity. If we are serious about productivity in the regions then we have to be serious about the services that we have.

The final point I really want to focus on today is regional disadvantage. For businesses to grow in rural and regional Australia we need to make sure that there are no disincentives to doing business. Perhaps we need to start talking about fair and equitable access to services and infrastructure for all Australians. Perhaps we need to start talking to Australia Post about a subsidised model for regional postal services. What I like so much about the NBN is the fact that there is a wholesale price so that people in business in regional Australia wanting access to broadband pay the same price as those in the city wanting access to broadband. Perhaps we need to start looking with Australia Post how we can subsidise regional services.

We should remember that Australia Post is 100 per cent owned by Australian taxpayers. It is our business that we own. One-third of taxpayers live in regional Australia. Do they not deserve the same postal service as taxpayers who live in the city? (Time expired)

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to address this motion on Australia Post. From listening to the member for Bendigo you do not get the sense that her understanding of economics would make it in the real world. That of course underscores what is going on here with this motion today from the member for Ballarat. Because of the economics, there are changes occurring with Australia Post. At the moment all of us know that there are severe challenges facing this business. Far from being some sort of utopian Communication Workers Union plaything, this is a business fundamentally.

With the volume of letters decreasing over time in Australia, the core model of business for Australia Post is diminishing. It is unsustainable. The member for Bendigo said we need to subsidise it. She should have said who should subsidise this service. The government? The taxpayer? Of course, the taxpayer. It is always someone else's money. It is easy to say but harder to do.

Times are changing. We as members of parliament can communicate with our electorates via email, no longer by letters. It is interesting to note that there have been only three price rises for stamps in about 20 years. The consumer price index will have risen many times more than the price of the stamp—the basic service delivery—yet we have members in this place trying to completely disconnect the cost of the service from the actual delivery of the service. That is something you cannot do when you are talking about running a business.

Of course the standards have to be met. The standards of course do not just include next day delivery; they go up to four business days in the service charter—and I refer members opposite to that part of the act. It is important to note that when certain conditions are not met it takes sometimes two days, three days or four days, as per the service charter. This motion says six days and I think it is quite deliberately worded, with six days being four business days and two non-business days. I am not inspired by the examples that have been presented by those opposite. I am especially not inspired by the Communication Workers Union sending each other letters in the mail.

You get the sense that the members for Ballarat and Bendigo would have been amongst those 100 years ago lamenting blacksmithing going out of business with the advent of the motor car and saying: 'We need to do something to subsidise blacksmiths. Maybe we should provide horses to blacksmiths so they can still shoe them.' That it is the sense you get from this motion. There is nothing realistic about it. Does it address price increases, needed by this business to survive? No. Does it address the fact that all other postal services around the world have diversified? Has that word come out of the mouths of members opposite? No. They have diversified into other services to enable themselves to be viable as businesses, to continue to function—into banking services, into all kinds of other services and business models, that have been working in other parts of the world. This is a service that needs a subsidy and always the members opposite say, 'We need a government subsidy first'.

The fact is that, in the history of this issue, not once has the minister written to the board saying that it should do something—not once: no Labor minister and no Liberal minister. The opposition has never written to the board to request them to do anything in this business for anybody in regional Australia or anywhere else—not once. So it is pretty odd that we find ourselves here today with a motion from the member for Ballarat saying that from 7 September suddenly mail was not being delivered—from cuts that have not occurred! There have been no cuts. There have been no regional postal centre closures.

Of course things are being flagged about viable models for the future. All businesses have to look at the future and what may happen. The member for Bendigo comes in here—I know she is new—to say we are flagging voluntary redundancies. What a terrible thing: voluntary redundancies. When businesses have to continue to operate under increasing cost pressures, with challenges to their viability, voluntary redundancies are the best way—much better than having to fire people.

Opposition Member:

An opposition member interjecting—

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Job losses are inevitable unless we have massive government subsidy. It is much better for this business to work out things through voluntary arrangements and natural attrition than have to retire people through forced redundancies. That is a much better system. Given that none of us are sending the mail volumes that we did in the past, including members of parliament—the member for Bendigo won't be sending so many letters through the mail—there has been a societal change; it is something to be expected, something we can anticipate, something we can manage. Just like the blacksmiths of 100 years ago: times change, things change and we must change with them, we must propose solutions for them. We cannot provide a blacksmith subsidy scheme for the 21st century.

Debate adjourned.

Proceedings suspended from 13:22 to 16:00