Lest some of the usual suspects # misconstrue that the changes in Australia Post are some kind of Abbott led conspiracy. Let me point out that AP has been shedding staff and degrading assets for a looooooooooooog time. And I could be mistaken (there’s a first time for everything), but my recollection is that the major part of such “restructuring” occurred under previous labour administrations.

During earlier changes they :
-Leased out many of their iconic buildings
-Licensed off most of the smaller POs, and
-Centralised many of their other state divisions in Vic HQ , induced large numbers of other-state staff to leave. Then upped the selection criteria and filled most of the relocated position’s with temps from the subcontinent [which no doubt earned them a lot of kudos with the diversity/multicultural crowd!]

APs traditional mainstay, the letters service is dying. If AP is to survive it needs to adopt and adapt new services. But all too often “modernisation” and “change” when used by AP have been cover words for selling off the silver --making the excecutives and board look good so as to facilitate bigger bonus’s.

The sooner the organisation is privatised the better. It is peppered with petty fiefdoms and nepotism. It needs a good clean-out from C-suite to no-suit level.

# this term used under license with Paul1405

Dear SM I think every time you and your buddies labour/lib sell off assets it ends up costing us in the future. To name a few banks/electricity. So AP could be the best Parcel/online buy delivery service in Australia, But once again WE get screwed over by Sitting government. Next will be the line how much we will save. Add in the Human cost here how many more unemployed do you wish to make, More on the already long dole que

ANY MONEY MADE FROM SELLING AUSSIE POST
is more than offset by the archived stamps it holds historic intrests over

thee unsold stamps/master plaes designs etc etc[in stamp banknote and coin/are worth collectivly great fortunes/monopoly possesionis beyond price

but hey/if ya going tose liquidate the histry by public auction/and be surprised

anyhow the shadow spin meister/too clever by half shadw
your skill is wased/onn this forum//wghhere else ya post?

great example/kiddies

<<If it is sold off,the government>>

you mean the liberal govt[its funny when its yours/its the govt/compared to the next use/for those then/in\govtits the cuntries=debt/not alp/lib/green
we all pay[ok in the usual case the poor pay/and the rich pick/who gets their largess\but then claim a tax deduction/so the poor pay/as all ways

not libs pay
not govt pays
we sukkers paying giovt extortion/taxas 'govt'loots every bit of capital return posiotive asset

just the fed//or just the common wealth bank
or veven just telstra/we wouldnt need sell of aussie post

<<>gets money to spend on other infrastructure>
that capitlaists/[and pension funds/wont risk their riches/on/so the wage slave mug/gets raped again

ten percent of his wages cause all that sin
[see this cash/needs assetswith high future return/and the cash cow aussie post has assets to burn/billions/trillions

stolen/by spn/yet again

then we sold it for your own good/cleared the books
<<. and pay off labor's debt,??featherd many a nest/and stole the best

<<> and still gets 30% of the profits.>>

your a clever man/why sell your soul so cheap
such a great soul/please stop staining it[or at least not be a living hunman/doing it/you sound like a machine

a clay man/robot/you feed tape into ans spin rushes out

at least turn out to be sncere/not a sell-out
sad you could be so great
but hide in the shadows

so be it

Shadow, trotting out that old sell off the "juicy plum" line, with; If AP is a viable entity operating amongst other similar companies, why on earth does it need to be publicly owned?
I'll give you a number of reasons. Firstly, I don't agree it is operating amongst similar companies, which other company in Australia provides a daily personal letter delivery service. I can't think of one, and letter delivery is still a major part of AP's operation. If privatised then the present community obligations that are part of AP would simply be replaced with responsibility to the new shareholders and many Australians, particularly those in regional Australia, would be disadvantaged. Privatization would lead to a national monopoly of postal service without competition and that would see price rises and diminished services for consumers.
I also point to our on going discussion about Australia's largest bank, the CBA which was privatised some years ago, and the problems we are having with it, and its lack of accountability.

Thank you all for your replies.

Firstly from Australia post's own figures there were over 200 pieces of mail delivered for every man, woman and child in this country last year. So much for post being on its last legs. I certainly accept it is diminishing and there have been natural adaptions encompassing the growth in parcel deliveries and the associated revenues.

And I also know how much corporatisation and contracting out that has occurred within the organisation, often leading to heavily underpaid country contractors.

Australia Post might be branded as a form of collectivism, designed to serve bulwark against the deprivations of purely laissez faire capitalism system where the user pays entirely commensurate with the cost of delivering the individual service to them. But to me having city folk pay a small amount extra so that a document from someone in Broome to a person in Davenport doesn't cost $30 speaks to me of a desire for fairness and equity that has been what this nation is about.

For many years private corporations have been prevented from getting their hands on the inner city mail services. They see the profits that might be made because of the margins that are there to allow for a universal system would permit them to undercut Australia Post.

The fact that Australia Post now has growing part of its revenue in parcel services should mean that it has the means to continue with a strong universal system without a direct burden on the tax payer.

Look at the language used in this quote;

“While our parcel and retail businesses performed well this year, this was offset by the structural challenges facing our reserved mail business, which returned a trading loss of $147.4 million (up $33.0 million on last year). This loss was driven by the accelerated decline in addressed letter volumes, which were down 6.4 per cent this year. Unfortunately the fixed-cost nature of our mail network meant that the loss could not be offset by cost savings.”

Cont...

Cont...

No, Australia Post is a government organisation charged with providing a service to all Australians and if one part of it is subsidising another so be it. There are many government services that are a direct drain on the budget but AP delivered over $400 million to the government coffers last year.

This will be the road ahead unless it can be stopped. The split of AP into a profitable parcel delivery entity and a loss making mail delivery entity will be cemented. The government of the day whether it be Liberal or Labour with sell off the former and over time use the losses in the latter to push for privatisation of the latter. In order to keep some notions of universal service it will mandate and pay for subsidised country deliveries but as they will now be a direct cost to the budget bottom line the appetite from the ordinary tax payer will diminish and it will slowly go by the wayside.

I know there are economic rationalists on this forum but every now and again even they need to park the ideology and think about the nation as a whole, to think about the community benefits to small country towns of their local post office, to think of this issue in the light of Australian egalitarianism. This is indeed one of those occasions.