Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I want to talk about one of my local post offices. Post offices are important. They're places that we go to for banking, to pay for bills, to pick parcels up and, of course, to send a package either across the country or sometimes overseas. They're the sort of services that any community needs, particularly older Australians and particularly multicultural communities, like the one that I'm privileged to represent in Western Sydney.

When Australia Post announced that they were closing the Auburn post office, a lot of people in my community were pretty angry and pretty upset. That was announced a couple of weeks ago. Auburn is a pretty big place in Western Sydney. It is home to about 40,000 people. About one in two people who live in Auburn live in apartments—places where secure storage for the delivery of parcels is often a challenge. That's why an after-hours parcel collection service, like that which is offered at Auburn post office, is so important. The closure of that post office would be a bad decision and something that would hurt my local community.

I, along with my colleagues the state member for Auburn, Lynda Bolts, and the Mayor of Cumberland City Council, Lisa Lake, called on Australia Post to reverse this decision to close the Auburn post office. We made the point that Auburn needs a post office, whether it's in its current location or somewhere else in the Auburn CBD. I'm happy to advise the House that Australia Post has heard those calls from me, from my colleagues and from the broader community, and they've agreed to search for a new location and relocate the post office somewhere else inside the Auburn CBD. I can also advise that Cumberland City Council has offered to assist Australia Post in finding a new location inside Auburn CBD for the new post office. This is good news. It's a commonsense result, and it's a great result for my local community. I want to publicly thank Australia Post for this. I look forward to seeing the new post office open and continue to support my community in Auburn.