Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are 49 licensed post offices, or LPOs, in my electorate of Lyons, the largest electorate in the state of Tasmania. They are all country post offices and they have all struggled to survive for the past two decades since licenses were issued to private contractors to run these essential regional small businesses. They have struggled not because of the quality of the service that they provide but rather because of the income available to them and over which they have no control at all. The money from stamp sales is passed back to LPOs by Australia Post and influences a range of other payments that they receive from Australia Post. Since 1993, the cost of stamps simply has not kept pace with inflation. Australians are sending fewer letters by mail, so LPO operators in my neck of the woods have welcomed the proposed reforms to Australia Post, announced this week in parliament by the Minister for Communications, Malcolm Turnbull.

Westbury post office proprietor Bob Richardson, with whom I met a couple of weeks ago to discuss these very issues along with my colleague Senator Abetz, suggested that the proposed increase in the price of stamps from 70c to $1 would provide the means, expected to be roughly around $20,000 on average per year to an LPO, to make these country post offices more viable. Total payments from Australia Post for stamps at the moment amount to around $70,000 gross a year, from which the small business then has to deduct all its costs like rent, power, plant and equipment. The increased income is most welcome. Bicheno post office proprietor Subi Mead suggests she recorded a taxable income last year of $40,000 last financial year.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I love Bicheno.

Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a beautiful part of the world. That income level is completely unsustainable. Many family post offices absolutely need to see partners go out into the workforce because the business simply cannot sustain two people. The licensed post offices in my electorate of Lyons are valued and are important. Evandale LPO proprietors Carol and Jim Brown argue these reforms will not come soon enough and her customers are not upset at all about the prospect of paying $1 for stamps. These sentiments will be shared by post offices providing a service in remote places across my electorate, from Nubeena on the Tasman Peninsula—if you have not been there, member for McMillan, I suggest you go; it is another beautiful part of my electorate—to Ouse in the Central Highlands, to Mathinna in the north-east of the state. So I welcome the measured approach that Australia Post has taken to try and claw back a major decline in its core business of providing services around the country.

Sixty per cent of LPOs nationally are located in regional Australia. These reforms are essential to ensure that they remain open in country communities. It demonstrates quite clearly how our government is looking to support small businesses. After the previous government had, I think, six ministers responsible for small business, we have, I suggest, the best small business minister this nation has ever had, in the form of Minister Billson. The work he has done around franchisees, allowing franchisees to have a more equal relationship with franchisors, is welcomed. More recently, the Food and Grocery Industry Code of Conduct to support suppliers, particularly those supplying the big supermarkets in this country, is another signal that this government values small businesses. They are the lifeblood of regional Australia in particular, and we will continue to find ways to make sure that these important businesses—drivers of prosperity and employers of local people in local communities—are supported.