Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian Greens will be supporting these amendments. I think they are quite important amendments, as Senator Thorpe has outlined. Many communities, particularly those in regional areas and small towns, don't have banks. The big banks have given up on the communities. They've shut down and they've left town. Often, the post office is the only place left for people to be able to engage in their banking activities. This is what's going on across the board with Australia Post. I want to be clear about this. Australia Post is being hollowed out time after time after time. Post offices are hubs of our communities. Every time the government decides to cut a service it's being done as a cost-saving measure, which is ultimately reducing the level of service and support for people in our communities, whether it's cutting the number of days that letters are delivered, putting up the cost of postage, getting rid of banking or, indeed, shutting down branches and the post offices themselves.

In Campbelltown in South Australia, in the electorate of Sturt, we have a move by Australia Post to shut down that branch. The local community is livid. They're upset about it. This particular post office services a large number of residential facilities for the elderly and homes for senior Australians. It's those people who use the post office on a regular basis, and it's currently in a location they can walk to. If that post office is shut down, it'll be near impossible for them to be able to access the next closest post office. I urge Australia Post to think better about the decisions they are making to shut down branches, leaving communities in the lurch.

Whether it's with this amendment bill or the next round of cuts to Australia Post—it doesn't seem to matter whether it's the Labor Party or the coalition in government—they continue to undermine Australia Post being a proper service of the Australian people. The quasi-public/private outfit is clearly not working to deliver services to people and the community. I commend the amendment.