Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of the report of the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee's inquiry into Australia Post and the licensed post office network. The committee received 213 submissions and 845 letters from licensed post offices. I also received a large amount of correspondence on this inquiry and I thank all those who have taken the time to make a contribution. The inquiry was conducted in a good spirit across party lines both under the previous chair, Senator Williams, and the chair since July, Senator Ruston. I also thank the secretariat, led by Christine McDonald, for their guidance, research and support. It has been a long inquiry, but we have got there. Thanks also to Sophie, Meryl, Ruth and Dianne.

With my colleague Senator Cameron, I have provided some additional comments to the majority report around outsourcing of government services to Australia Post, and I will return to those comments later. However, I want to begin with what we agreed upon. The committee is making 18 recommendations that encompass the future of mail in this country and the impacts on Australia Post employees, contractors and the licensed post offices, community postal agencies and franchised post offices that make up Australia's postal network. I want to focus my remarks on four of these recommendations.

Recommendation 4 goes to the heart of the future of mail in our country. The committee is recommending that the Commonwealth government immediately commission an independent review of the community service obligations contained in the Australian Postal Corporation Act 1989 and associated regulations.

In doing so, the committee also recommends that the government include an assessment on the future of mail delivery services; an assessment of the number of retail outlets required in the network; an investigation into the effects of any changes to the community-service obligations on Australia Post employees, licensed post offices, community postal agencies, franchisees and mail contractors; and consideration to the needs of remote rural and regional communities, particularly where other service providers have ceased to operate.

The postal environment worldwide is experiencing rapid and significant change. In Australia, the substitution of digital communications for letters is now so pervasive that Australia Post is reporting escalating losses in its letter business. As a result, the future of postal services in Australia is at a crossroads and there are a number of significant far-reaching issues that need to be addressed. These include the type and scale of the postal network that can be sustained into the future, the funding options available to maintain the network and how, and to what extent the current community-service obligations can be preserved.

In this context it must be recognised that Australia Post is not a private business. Its shareholders are the entire Australian community and the postal network is woven through the fabric of Australian life. Further, the most fundamental responsibility of Australia Post is to supply a letter service that is accessible to all people in Australia on an equitable basis, wherever they may reside or operate a business.

Changes to Australia Post and its network will have an impact on our communities and way of life. During the latter stages of the inquiry I was visited by a group representing the printing industry, unions, licensed post offices and community users of postal services. This group was created simultaneously to the inquiry, and the leaders of the group should be commended for bringing together a varied range of groups to talk through the future of mail in Australia.

One of the members of the group, a retired AMWU member from Melbourne, John, came to Canberra to represent pensioners—a section of our communities whose working lives often ended before the widespread use of the internet came to being. John remarked to me that once we lose a government service were never get it back. These ideas to move to mail delivery only three days a week are likely to be just the beginning. Once the infrastructure is gone for delivering daily mail, we will not get it back. This was wise advice from John, who went on to tell the group of the many reductions in services that started out as a small change but ended up being much more drastic than first thought.

It is why recommendation 6 is vital. While recommendation 4 sets out for the government to review the community-service obligations, recommendation 6 requests that the Minister for Communications form a formal postal-network strategy group that engages all stakeholders in the development of a comprehensive strategy to inform changes to the Australia Post network in the face of emerging changes.

This group has already formed itself, separate of government, separate of political parties. It spans the full scope of the printing and postal industry and includes a wide range of consumer groups. This group is the perfect body to be the minister's formal postal-network strategy group. It is also my hope and the committees hope that the minister will instigate a broad community-consultation program because, as the report outlined, Australia Post shareholders are the entire Australian community.

In doing so, it is my hope that Australia Post will do away with some of its glossy brochures and that the government and Australia Post will sit down and have meaningful discussions with people, right across the country, about the future of our mail delivery. Rather than have a predetermined opinion, it is my hope that the government and Australia Post actively engage with the community and work together to determine how the postal network can meet its challenges. It was the committee's consensus view that at present Australia Post is making changes without involving stakeholders and it considers that this has contributed to the growing divide between the various stakeholders and Australia Post.

The evidence presented by the licensed post offices demonstrates that the relationship between Australia Post and its licensees is particularly dysfunctional. LPOs and community postal agencies account for a clear majority of the national postal network and cover nearly all of rural and regional Australia. As senators would be aware, the local post office is often the last institution in many towns across the country. Unfortunately, evidence to the inquiry was quite damning of the conduct and representative skills of the current sole accredited association, the Post Office Agents Association Limited. POAAL is the only association accredited by Australia Post under the Licensed Post Office Agreement.

Over the past few years, another organisation has been formed and the evidence presented by the LPO Group to the committee has demonstrated that in its future efforts to be more consultative Australia Post should treat this association on the same terms as POAAL. As such, the committee is recommending that the definition of 'association' in the LPO agreement be amended to include, in addition to POAAL, other licensee-representative groups, but not limited to the LPO Group.

I commend the leadership and tenacity of Angela Cramp and Andrew Hirst, from the LPO Group, who are in the gallery today. Throughout the course of this inquiry they have represented their members with vigour, honesty and consistency. I hope the frustrations you have outlined to me and the committee over the past year begin to be resolved by the government and Australia Post.

I finally want to touch on recommendation 17 that the Minister for Communications, as a matter of urgency, commission an independent audit of the activities undertaken by the Licensed Post Office network. This independent audit should specifically determine the validity of claims made by licensees that payments made under the LPO agreement are not fair or reasonable. Further, it is recommended that where a payment is found to be not fair or reasonable a study should be conducted to determine what an appropriate payment rate should be.

The basic problem with the LPO agreement is the indexation of payments to the basic postal rate. As the basic postal rate has increased at a much slower rate than inflation over the past 20 years, many LPOs are struggling to keep their businesses afloat. There were many other claims raised by LPOs that time prevents me from detailing today.

I conclude on the one aspect of the report that Labor senators disagreed on: the assertion in the majority report that the postal network provides an opportunity for government to deliver services more efficiently. I note that no evidence was provided to support this claim. The evidence from Australia Post provided no comfort that it could handle many of the face-to-face operations of Centrelink and Medicare. Rather, the assertion is simply another attempt by the Liberal Party to promote its ideological belief that the outsourcing of government services increases efficiency

As such, Labor senators strongly recommend that the government does not outsource any functions of the Department of Human Services, such as Medicare and Centrelink, to Australia Post.

In conclusion, it is my hope that Australia Post and the government can work with Australia Post employees, unions, contractors, licensees, the printing industry and the community to pave a sustainable footing for our postal network. As John said, once we've lost it, we won't get it back.