Two years ago I posted a thread about Australia Post CEO, Ahmed Fahour. I protested that his salary was the largest of any public servant in Australia and even larger than the CEO of the American Postal Service. On that occasion I rebuked him for granting a $2 million dollar bonus to himself even though the Australia Post profit margin was falling and announcing 600 retrenchments from Australia Post I also rebuked him for directing the bonus from Australia Post to the Australian Islamic Museum, a tax exempt organization whose executive management are all from his immediate family; his sister even had the concession for the kiosk.

My issue with his management style and direction now is focussed on the rate hike of surface mail to a minimum of $1.00 per article; stamps now cost $1.00, a 42% increase. This short sighted, ill-conceived strategy for raising revenue will lose many existing business clients. Just in the past week I know of 2 medium sized businesses that will now send all their monthly statements via email. Just in these two Australia post clients he has lost $16,000 in stamp sales.

It is time to review this dismal performer’s position. He is still getting $4.5 million dollars a year for his poor strategic thinking and hopeless business acumen.

I cannot see why this character is paid so much when Australia Post is apparently doing so badly. We are facing increasing costs and SLOWER service. In Tanunda, SA, the original post office has a plaque on it advising that the town boasted a weekly mail delivery in 1864. If you post a letter to some places in Australia in 2016, there is no guarantee that it will arrive in a week. I reckon Australia Post could save a few million by getting rid AF. At his pay pay rate, a government monopoly should be doing much better than it is. 99% of the time, failure is due to poor management.

Dear sonofgloin and ttbn,

Sounds like the two of you might be just a little bit jealous of Ahmed Farhour.

And I hope this is not another one of those Muslim bashing posts.

And to ttbn I would like to say: Get over it and get on with your life!

Ttbn>> In Tanunda, SA, the original post office has a plaque on it advising that the town boasted a weekly mail delivery in 1864. If you post a letter to some places in Australia in 2016, there is no guarantee that it will arrive in a week.<<

What a travesty, they could deliver a better mail service by horse than Ahmed Fahour can today.

Mr Opinion, lay off the “Muslim bashing” card. Because of the facts behind what I posted there is no other way to represent it than I did. Given your uninformed comment I will give you the facts behind my statement .
“AUSTRALIA Post donated more than $2 million to an ¬Islamic museum in suburban Melbourne in lieu of a bonus it was due to pay its chief executive, Ahmed Fahour.The founder and director of the museum is Moustafa Fahour - Ahmed Fahour’s brother. Moustafa’s wife, Maysaa, is the chair-woman and director.The Fahours’ sister, Samira El Khafir, is head chef and man¬ages the cafe on site.”

Mr Opinion, if it was a Catholic, a Jew, a Buddhist, a Rastafarian, or a Hindu directing a self-given bonus of $2 million tax payer dollars to a private family controlled entity, I would state it.

Back to the thread, I have now spoken to a third small business owner who was spending $600 per month on stamped window faced envelopes to send out his monthly accounts. Now he is going to email the account statements. I would venture that the commercial segment is a major user of Aust Post and just from this small sampling I can see a huge loss in that segment.

Larger companies such as utility companies have already sent form letters to their clients informing them of an additional “postal fee” in their account statements.

Mr Fahour knows his best defence is "Islamaphobia"! What else is there?
I am personally sick of people who attribute some sort of mental illness when a muslim is criticised. Perhaps someone with money needs to sue for defamation or what about the Corruption commissions around the country, where do we go?
Islam is a horrible creed and anything but a "Religion of Peace". Yet the ABC is wedded to it after years of it's anti religion, why?

Mr. No Opinion,

Get over what?

JB,

Yes. Critcise someone with an Arab name, and some nitwit (Mr. Opinion in this case) jumps to conclusions. I don't know whether Farhour is a Muslim or not; it has nothing to do with his poor performance. The mobile 'phone man who died recently was a Muslim, and he wasa business genius. If I want to have a go at Islam, I will, and I do. The subject was our lousy postal service, but some ratbags like Opinion jump at any chance to demonstrate their warped views on their pet stupidities.

Mr Opinion has a valid point. We certainly seem to be pandering to a small religious minority who, whereever they go, have wrecked the country.
Islam is a dog of an ideology, with apologies to dogs of course. We are insane to let these things happen where he gets a job running Australia Post into the ground and criticism is given as a mental condition.
The disgusting ABC and sections of politics are pandering to islam not realising they would be the first to go. Look at Europe how has wholesele islamisation assisted anything? Come to think of it what has been done in Australia for that matter?

Here's my recent (last week) experience with Australia Post.

I live in one of four small towns in NSW across the river from Mildura. An organisation in another town, 30km away, emailed me a document, but also sent a copy by post, to 'save me the cost of printing' out the attachment. The letter took 2 weeks to travel 30km. Of course it travelled further: with no local mail sorting, it went across the river to Mildura, then to Melbourne, where it was sorted, then back to Mildura, then across the river again to my PO box - a round trip of 1100 km.

Simultaneously, I ordered some books on line; both parcels got from Sydney to my box in just three working days, presumably direct by truck to Mildura? As I commented at the local PO when I picked up the parcels, it would have been quicker to walk to the next town and collect the letter.

It has been like this for a while, but the local POs had ways to bypass the system. It's 300k from here to Broken Hill: mail goes via Mildura, Melbourne, Sydney to Broken Hill. Once the posties put a letter on a truck direct to Broken Hill for me because it was urgent.

For letters, this seems to be the result of technology - its cheaper(?) to send everything to one big processing centre and run it through the machine, but clearly if you live in the country it's a lot slower.

While I'm not one for conspiracy theories, I wonder if there is something deeper at work. Yes, letter writing had declined. But in business when sales drop, a common strategy is to lower your prices to increase sales. The increase in stamp cost to $1 (a very large % jump compared to previous rises) looks like it is designed to kill off letter mail entirely, or shift it to priority paid (maybe less than a week in the country, definitely not next day delivery) or registered mail. Maybe this is what the AP CEO is getting paid so much for?

So what are you saying Cossomby? That you think Ahmed Farhour deserves every cent of that $4.5 million.

I don't think anyone 'deserves' that sort of money. But maybe he's doing what is expected of him (though not by us hoi polloi).

As I said, I'm not usually into conspiracy theories, but I don't understand how such huge salaries are approved unless there's some underlying agenda.

Cossomby>> in business when sales drop, a common strategy is to lower your prices to increase sales. The increase in stamp cost to $1 (a very large % jump compared to previous rises) looks like it is designed to kill off letter mail entirely<<

Coss it is a 41% increase……..you may be onto something re the chasing customers away, but whether the strategy is growth or contraction, he does not warrant $4.5 million for doing it.

Lay off Ahmed,he has been running one of the largest illegal drug importation organisations in Australia,Australia Post.
It is responsible for the safe passage of packages to our most lucrative industry.
In July 2009 he was head of investments for the Islamic Bank GFH,he oversaw their investment strategy.
He was headhunted to be Australia Post Chief.
Head Hunted is meant as an indication of the type of business Ahmed was involved with.
The expression it is not what you know but who you know.
In Ahmed's case it is what you know about who you know.
That is why he got such a large payout.
Australia Post is not the only one operating with overseas criminal gangs.
Telstra has been infiltrated by the same gangs.
Millions of dollars are taken from Telstra customers by fraud every week .
No Police checks are carried out at Telstra or Australia Post.
The only time an arrest is made is one postman caught opening a letter.This is blown up by the media as some great arrest.
Meantime the executives of Australia Post and Telstra are stealing millions.

Sonofgloin, start a petition to get rid of him or cut his salary in quarter...Change.org or one of those. I'll sign.