Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Right now, there are posties riding around my electorate trying to deliver two full postal runs in a single day. This is the alternative model that Australia Post has imposed. Leigh has contacted me with her increasing concerns about her partner's experience and that of his colleagues as local posties. Leigh says they're effectively delivering twice the amount of mail they were delivering before the change. This doubled workload is placing enormous strain on both the physical and the emotional wellbeing of posties, as they struggle to do their best to get through each day, before going home exhausted. She tells me that, even with delivery vans operating alongside them each day and on each run, they're often working from 6.30 in the morning until five at night and still not able to complete the delivery of all the day's mail.

Leigh says the media reports that posties are 'loving the new system' is, in her observation, simply not true. All the stories she hears are about posties who are struggling to cope. As she says, 'They might love the job, but they certainly do not love the new delivery model, and they fear for their future. Some have even taken early retirement.' She fears that no-one in Australia Post or the Morrison government is listening to them and that it will contribute to serious mental health problems, physical injury or even death. They need to be heard.