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Return to sender : Comments

By Jonathan J. Ariel, published 2/1/2014

Let's reject Australia Post's proposed price rise.

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Any government ‘business’ is mere tax gathering. Perhaps Australia Post is another enterprise that should be sold to the private sector.

Whatever happens to letter deliveries, they must be maintained. It’s all very well to say that it is cheaper and quicker to email, but it is surprising just how many commercial entities do not have an email address; the most surprising one being my internet security company, which emails me, sends updates and takes my subscriptions electronically, but has no email address for themselves. I looked in vain for an email address for Qantas only yesterday, to try to get my name taken off the Frequent Flier list – no email address available; had to write. I cannot be bothered telephoning someone who speaks too fast mumbles or has a foreign accent.

More and more businesses – apart from online retailers – are dodging emails, it seems. They prefer telephone contact – so that they can deny that you actually contacted them with a complaint, perhaps? So that they can keep you waiting and being told how good they are and how important your call is? It’s hard to tell, because so many of them now have people with undecipherable foreign accents manning their phones, and one would think that this was bad for business.

For anything important these days, I have gone back to the old fashioned carbon letter book; it might be ‘quaint’ and old fashioned, but at least the recipient knows you have a copy. Some of the old ways are still the best.
Posted by NeverTrustPoliticians, Thursday, 2 January 2014 10:01:14 AM
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It is important to maintain the infrastructure and know-how of physical posting, so we are not stuck with absolutely nothing the day the internet dies (along with the telephony system that recklessly depends on the internet).

It is important that we all, at least once in a while write a real letter to our friends with a real pen on a real paper and place it in a real envelope - lest we forget how to do it when the need arises.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Thursday, 2 January 2014 12:17:56 PM
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From my experience the bulk of the letter business in Australia today is commercial, utilities etc sending bills, advertising and so on. Australia Post carries the lost incurred by this business, something in the order of $150m p/a, which is in turn underwritten by the profitable section of the business, parcels, financial services etc. As a wholly owned government enterprise Australia Post is well managed and well run, compare it to the US and British postal systems, with their huge losses. Is the CEO paid too much, probably, then which CEO of any large corporation in Australia is under paid?
Despite the letter business problems Australia Post operates at not cost to the taxpayer, in fact it returns a nice dividend to the government.
Where in the world can you post a letter from a small town in Tasmania to an even smaller town in the Northern Territory for 60c, just to say hallo to grandma?
Posted by Paul1405, Saturday, 4 January 2014 8:01:36 AM
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I do think that Aus Post is one of the few businesses that should stay in government ownership.

Actually Yuyutsu, it is the internet that uses the telephone system
which is X25, not the other way around, but your comment is valid anyway.
There is no guarantee that the internet will survive any traumatic
emergency. It is actually quite fragile to support structures like
maintenance backup, spare parts etc and sabotage.
For example a problem which may well have been fixed since attention
was drawn to it;
Two fibre optic cables run up the coast Sydney to Brisbane & beyond.
So some redundancy there, except they both crossed the river at
Telegraph Point (ironic) on the same bridge !

No emergency organisation can rely 100% on any form of telecommunications
that depends on the public system. Even the GRN (Gov Radio Net) uses
the public system for longer distances.
The mobile phone system always fails first due to overload so there
is a protocol to dump all non emergency service users.

That is why organisations such as Belly I belong to are always prepared to fill any gaps.
Posted by Bazz, Saturday, 4 January 2014 10:09:22 AM
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Paul 1405: you raise two points that I would like to address.

First you ask "if the CEO is paid too much, then which CEO isn't?". The fact is that in the private sector, shareholders can indicate their support or not for the remuneration proposed for managers. Many times shareholders are astonished at the greed on parade and vote accordingly. In the public sector often all one needs is to have decent qualifications and have the politicians du jour be enamoured of a particular candidate to secure him (it's usually a him) an offensive remuneration. Offensive to the tax paying owners that is.

Second, you ask where in the world can one send mail across such vast distances (such as in Australia) for 60c? Let me tell you. In the USA. There you can send a letter across the republic for 46c, being A$0.50.
Posted by Jonathan J. Ariel, Saturday, 4 January 2014 11:11:04 AM
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Jonathan, I must correct you one that point "Let me tell you. In the USA. There you can send a letter across the republic for 46c, being A$0.50." Have you factored in the $5 billion loss this year (picked up by the US tax payer) into that 46c? Unlike Australia where a little bit of that 60c revenue is passed back to the government. Didn't the US post incur a $16 billion loss the previous year?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/16/us/postal-service-trims-its-losses.html?_r=0

As for Ahmed Fahour pay packet. He could probably argue compared to other CEO's of similar sized private companies in Australia he is being short changed. The US bloke considering the losses might be over paid at 1/2 a mill. Anyway, I'm not here to defend the obscene pay packets for CEO's in Australia, in my opinion.
Posted by Paul1405, Saturday, 4 January 2014 7:50:55 PM
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