Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Despite his cigar buddy, the member for North Sydney, repeatedly calling for full privatisation of the government's remaining assets, in late May Finance Minister Mathias Cormann begrudging said that the Abbott government has no plans to sell Australia Post. Considering the number of backflips by this government on key policy promises I do not find the minister's claim reassuring.

Over the last year or so a number of well-placed articles have pointed out that Australia Post has more than $4 billion in assets, and selling it off would be a nice windfall for this allegedly cash-strapped government. It would also be a great asset strip for some unknown Sydney merchant bankers. Australia Post chairman, Mr Stanhope, and the Business Council of Australia are of course in favour of privatisation.

What is more important, though, is that the ideological brains trust of this government, the tea party libertarians of the Institute for Public Affairs, have argued that there is no sound rationale for Australia Post to stay in government hands. We all remember the great pow-wow to honour the IPA held last year at the arts centre in Melbourne and attended by Rupert Murdoch and all the knobs in the now government. It was at that function that all of this was lauded and organised. We have seen Attorney-General Brandis's kamikaze mission, developed by the IPA, to dump 18C. When the IPA says 'jump' the government says 'How high, and would you like a highly paid commissioner with that?' When it is considered politically opportune we will hear from Senator Cormann saying 'hasta la vista' to Australia Post.

In the last few weeks it has become even more obvious that the ground is being prepared for privatisation. The pig is being fattened. We have been told by the Australia Post CEO that because Australians are sending fewer letters the letter delivery side of Australia Post's operations is bleeding money. Thus, to avoid so-called extinction, the Australia Post workforce is being reduced by 900, with Communications Minister Turnbull seeming to agree with these reductions in Australia Post services, and with those advocating to reduce mail delivery to three times a week. Most people probably do not realise that communicating by mail is less important than it was. In my view, the IPA's Australian Post narrative has not nearly been questioned to the extent it should be. I say this because despite popular perceptions Australia Post is profitable overall. Last year it made $312 million. The organisation returned a dividend to the government of $244 million and paid taxes of $44.7 million. These profits have come overwhelmingly from the delivery of parcels, so losses in the mail delivery side of the business of $218 million were picked up on the parcel side, with $648 million.

Conveniently for privatisation purposes, Australia Post's parcel delivery service is undertaken by a wholly owned company, Star Track Express. Separating Australia Post's business in this way helps the argument that Australia Post is a sinking behemoth in need of radical surgery, potentially followed by privatisation.

If Australia Post overall is still providing healthy dividends to the government, what is the driving rationale? Mr Murdoch's tabloid newspapers famously cross-subsidise his flagship, The Australian. Why is it so absurd for one arm of a government service like Australia Post to cross-subsidise another, particularly when we are all paying taxes for that major service.

Australia Post and Mr Turnbull are concerned about reducing costs. I can suggest what they could turn to. The Australia Post CEO earned $4.75 million last year. By contrast, the CEO of Royal Mail was paid $2.14 million, and as recently as 2012 US Postmaster General Donahoe received $512,000, a figure that was decried in the US despite the fact that he is running a $65 billion business. But the Australia Post CEO is not the only high-paid executive at Australia Post. There are currently 435 Australia Post senior employees earning more than $193,000—three times as many individuals as there are MPs in the federal parliament, and they do not get the three-year interview. That is a total of more than $120 million spent on the CEO and his senior employees each year.

If Australians were aware of how profitable this 105-year-old institution is and how much its senior executives are earning, I am sure they would be disgusted at the arguments to cut its mail services and the talk of eventual privatisation. They might ask the Minister for Communications why they pay taxes if they are going to be denied these services. Instead of considering the public interest, however, the IPA, the Australia Post leadership and the terminator faction in the Liberal Party are pursuing a singly ideological agenda against Australia Post that is not in the public interest.