Headline hunting Greens and union officials who might be out of a job,

Versus,

the taxpayer who really doesn't have those 'lazy' dollars to prop up public servants' beaut pay and conditions of service.

Maybe the public would prefer to spend their money where they want to get services rather than supporting public service departments with their huge management overheads.

Why should the public be forced to pay for services they don't want?

AP made a significant operating profit of $400m, even after a loss in the mail division of $147m, meaning that the non mail segment would have delivered an operating profit of about $550m.

The one universal truth is that privately owned businesses almost always deliver services at a lower cost. If the non mail division was sold to private enterprise, it would improve the efficiency and probably increase the profits closer to $800m. Giving the government $bns to pay back Labor's debt or to spend on infrastructure, and tax revenue of up to $300m p.a. which is not much less than they were already getting.

This leaves the ailing mail department. Obviously most of the snail mail is not urgently time dependent. Receiving bills 3 days a week in urban areas or once a week for remote areas is not going to make a vast difference. Having living in a regional area for some years, I can't recall needing daily delivery. The daily delivery is an anachronism harking back to the days when there was no electronic mail. For urgent deliveries, there is always a priority mail option. It only takes common sense to make this a viable operation once again.

This is worth repeating for those who want to inanely bang on about public servants that Australia Post is by law run like a corporation.

“The APC Act requires Australia Post to perform its functions in a commercial manner. Australia Post is not funded by the Australian Government and meets all of its own costs. It is required to pay all government taxes including state, territory and local taxes. It is also required to pay a dividend to the Australian Government.”
http://www.communications.gov.au/post/australia_post/australia_post_history

And what happens when entities go through the process from being public to private, a journey at least half way completed by AP? Workers are made redundant or made to become contractors thus losing holiday, superannuation payments, sick leave etc. Check. Bosses give themselves obscene pay rises. Check. In 2013 Australia post workers received a 1.6% pay rise while the CEO's pay went up a massive 66%.

And Crikey makes this excellent point;

“Some say that Fahour and his fellow executives face a difficult task because of AusPost’s universal service obligation, but that overlooks an inconvenient truth: the money-losing regulated business gives AusPost’s package an incredible competitive advantage. That’s because the package business can use the entire AusPost network, including some 4400 retail outlets (of which 2651 are in rural areas) and the huge network of posties. So while AusPost’s package business doesn’t technically have a monopoly (it faces competition from a number of players like Toll and DHL), none of its competitors has its huge inbuilt advantage, especially with rural and east-west deliveries. That advantage comes from the infrastructure associated with the letter business.”
http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/10/23/is-auspost-boss-4-8-million-salary-pushing-the-envelope/

I repeat we are getting stitched up. The parcel division is getting set up for sale and the the likes of Macquarie Bank will be salivating at the though of the hundreds of millions they will stand to make facilitating it. That is where the so called 'fat cats' live but nary a peek about them from our ideologues.

u ain seen nuthin/yet
Expropriation Is Back - Is Christine Lagarde The Most Dangerous Woman In The World?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-03/expropriation-back-christine-lagarde-most-dangerous-woman-world

I have gone on record that the most dangerous organization is the now French led IMF with Christine Lagarde at the helm, which has presented a concept report that debt cuts for over-indebted states are uncompromising and are to be performed more effectively in the future by defaulting on retirement accounts held in life insurance, mutual funds and other types of pension schemes, or arbitrarily extending debt perpetually so you cannot redeem.

Yes you read correctly, The new IMF paper is described in great detail exactly how to now allow the private sector, which has invested in government bonds, to be expropriated to pay for the national debts of the socialist governments.

http://12160.info/xn/detail/2649739:Topic:1480624

SR

“The APC Act requires Australia Post to perform its functions in a commercial manner."

Pretty much like lipstick on a pig. The only reason that there is no competition in the letter business is because no one else is allowed to collect nor deliver letters. The CEO does not answer to shareholders, but to ministers. His prime objectives are not efficiency nor profits. The employees are public servants with all the perks overtime provisions set up with the cosy relations between Labor governments and the unions.

The delivery of letters does deliver some synergy, which is why it should also be opened to competition. There is still no clear reason why the functions of AP could not be done cheaper and better privately.

What don't you understand SteeleRedux.

In an earlier post I explained that small country towns don't have post offices staffed by overpaid public servants. They have private business, run by business people, paid on turnover.

From figures I saw about 20 years ago, these people cost about half the cost of public servants doing the same level of turnover, & that is before the saving in cost of providing the business premises is considered.

Please explain how this would change if city mail delivery people were suddenly expected to do a days work for their high pay.

"As for talk of "keeping overpaid public servants doing pretend work" that's simply ignorant of the facts. The vast majority of Australia Post employees are as hard working as any of their counterparts in the private sector" says Paul.

Spoken like a confirmed public servant, or union boss. You don't really expect any intelligent adult to believe that garbage do you Paul. All too many of us know how much of their shift is spent delivering letters, & how long the strike would be, if postal delivery public servants were actually asked to do a fair day's work.