Postal Services Modernisation
Australia Post Submission Executive Summary
As Australia’s postal service for more than 200 years, we are at the heart of every community. As community needs have changed, so have we. We have constantly evolved to continue to meet the changing expectations of our customers, communities, team members and our owner, the Commonwealth Government. We have a trust and relationship with our stakeholders that we are proud and privileged to hold and are committed to maintaining.
We welcome the Government’s Postal Services Modernisation Discussion Paper (Discussion Paper) which puts forward considerations for the next stage of our evolution.
The Discussion Paper notes that technological changes disrupted the postal service a long time ago. We are proud that technology has enabled us to deliver innovations to our customers. However, the regulatory obligations imposed on Australia Post through the Australian Postal Corporations Act 1989 (Cth) (and its regulations) have not kept pace with either the opportunities of digitisation or the cost of changing trends.
The letters service is no longer sustainable, incurring a record loss of $189.7 million over the first half of the 2023 financial year. While we are committed to meeting our Community Service Obligations under the Act, in the 2022 financial year these cost us around $348.5 million. At the same time, Australia Post does not receive financial support from Government, yet is expected to generate a return and remain financially sustainable. For these to continue, there needs to be modernisation, both in our operations and in the postal service regulatory framework.
We are pleased to contribute to the Government’s consultation on how postal service settings can be modernised so that Australia Post can continue to play the role that Australians expect, including as their behaviours and preferences change. We support the Government’s proposal that modernisation adheres to the following principles:
– Australia Post remaining in full public ownership, providing a universal and equitable service that meets the needs of Australian people and businesses;
– Australia Post remaining financially sustainable, and investing in its networks, services, and people to support improved national productivity and supply chain resilience;
– Postal services that support Australia’s digital economy, particularly as a critical enabler of the growing eCommerce market;
– Providing appropriate coverage of the Post Office network, particularly in regional areas, and supporting Licensed Post Offices and Community Postal Agents financial sustainability; and
– Reducing Australia Post’s operating cost in delivering regulated letter services, freeing up delivery and processing resources to support parcels delivery to respond to increasing demand and consumer expectations.
For Australia Post, having a regulatory framework that enables the postal service to modernise is one aspect that is fundamental as we continue to evolve to meet rapidly changing customer needs and expectations. We are pleased to share in this submission examples of how Australia Post is serving Australians in ways that suit them and how they live and work in 2023. Our Post26 Strategy guides our decisions on the networks, skills, customer-experience and technology that will be necessary to play the role we do in Australian communities for decades to come.
Like our international peers who are also navigating these challenges, there are reform options that could be considered. In this submission, we raise three areas we believe are priorities for modernising Australia Post:
1. Letter pricing – a simplified regulatory approach to letter pricing oversight to ensure it can be adjusted efficiently as mail volumes and efficiencies of scale decline and the number of delivery points increase.
2. Letters delivery – updating how we deliver to drive greater efficiency and use our resources more effectively, while ensuring we continue to meet the changing needs of the community, recognising the important role played by our Postal Delivery Officers.
3. Retail network – ensuring that our physical presence across the country has the flexibility to reflect the changing expectations and interactions of customers in physical stores, accessing services and shopping in an increasingly digital world.
We are committed to a sustainable future. The opportunities that will come from modernisation are significant – for customers, team members, regional and rural Australia, businesses and communities. Investments in improved technology, greater flexibility around how we provide our parcel services, and improvements in reliability, accessibility and environmental sustainability, are some of the ways that the benefits of modernisation can be given back to the customers and communities that we serve.
We wholeheartedly endorse the sentiment of the Government’s Discussion Paper:
A stronger, more viable Australia Post will be able to continue meeting its service obligations to the Australian community and means consumers and businesses will continue to benefit from a large, national network of postal services, particularly in rural and regional areas. Modernising postal services will ensure Australia Post has the capacity to prioritise the services that Australians are using now and continue to invest in products and services for the future.
We look forward to helping achieve that outcome with the input of all stakeholders in this process.
The full submission is available to download in the attachments.
