Australia Post licensees are frustrated with new performance standards implemented by corporate headquarters beginning on Monday 15 April.

The changes involve, among others, the reduction of reserved letter delivery to every second business day and extending the time that Australia Post has to deliver letters by one business day.  

While many post office operators around the western plains are unsure of how it may affect their customers, a Northern Territory academic and an industry spokesperson have flagged negative impacts for regional and remote communities.

Chair of the Licensed Post Office Group (LPOG) and licensee at the Gulgong post office Scott Etherington said the modernisation changes “continue to drive businesses into the ground.”

The franchisee association has appealed several times to Australia Post and senators to stop reducing the number of services and products.  

Etherington said he is concerned that Australia Post’s modernisation changes will render many businesses irrelevant. “If you don’t use it, you lose it. Another opportunity to keep post offices alive has been missed.”  

 LPOG chair and Gulgong AusPost licensee Scott Etherington

Professor of Marketing at Charles Darwin University Steven Greenland fears that the AusPost changes will impact regional and remote areas disproportionately to major cities.

“Anything that adds to the length of time is going to have a compound impact on regional or remote areas,” Greenland said.  

“Any reduction in investment and resources invariably has an impact on the level of service provided." 

The changes come after Australia Post announced over $200 million in losses in the 2022-2023 financial year. To make their business more cost-effective Australia Post switched to putting their main focus on parcel deliveries.

“The changes in the number of letters frequency announced today will free up our posties to focus on parcels and packages,” Australia Post CEO Paul Graham said in a statement last December when the changes were first made public.   

 Australia Post argued that the new standards will not change the minimum number of post offices in rural, regional, and remote areas. The implementation period for the changes will take place gradually until the end of 2025, according to a spokesperson of Australia Post.  

Etherington said that post offices are about more than just sending parcels. The LPOG chair said post offices also provide financial, business, and community services. With that in mind, he advocated for increasing bank services at post offices. “You need to find new products and services to replace the declining ones. Customers are frustrated to find out we can’t do certain types of transactions. We have wonderful customers but without being able to offer services, post offices will disappear." 

Greenland concluded that change is inevitable but that it will have to be planned carefully, “At the end of the day, they’re going to have to address the 200$ million losses and the reduction in the frequency of mail deliveries is one part of that process. We’ll have to see what else will unfold.”  

The changes to Australia Post delivery times follow a 25% increase in the basic postage rate for ordinary small letters (from $1.20 to $1.50) that began on 3 April 2024.