Demand the Albanese government save our post offices!

Sign Petition EN6326—Help grow our Local Community Post Office.

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After a week in Canberra meeting with politicians to discuss a public post office bank, the Australian Citizens Party (ACP) is alarmed that the threat of mass closures of post offices is being ignored.

ACP research Director Robert Barwick said today: “If the government doesn’t act, Australia could lose more than half the postal network before a postal bank is established.

“This would be devastating for thousands of communities that lose post offices, and it would severely limit the potential of a public post office bank.

“Currently, Australia Post has 4,271 post offices, which would make a government post office bank the biggest bank in Australia overnight, able to serve all communities, including the hundreds of communities completely abandoned by the major banks.

“That won’t be possible if Australia Post gets away with closing thousands of post offices.

“If we’re going to get a post office bank, it’s urgent that we demand the government save post offices.”

Post offices under threat

The ACP was joined in Canberra by the Licensed Post Office Group, which represents the interests of Australia’s 2,850 licensees who run post offices as independent small businesses, who are raising the alarm about the threat to the post office network.

Australia Post CEO Paul Graham has already declared his intention to close 271 post offices as soon as possible, to reduce the size of the network to the minimum of 4,000 it is required by law to maintain.

However, the LPO Group is warning that Australia Post’s management is only interested in expanding the parcels business, and sees everything else as an expense to reduce, including post offices.

The short-term ex-Woolworths, -McDonalds, and -Subway executives currently running Australia Post are ignoring the views of the licensees, informed by decades of institutional memory, as they look for ways to reduce the range of services available at post offices while they focus only on the parcels business.

But the services available at post offices are what keeps the licensees financially viable.

LPO Group warned the politicians that Australia Post doesn’t have to order licensed post offices to close; simply by withdrawing services and making LPOs financially unviable they will close themselves.

LPO Group is further warning that because the government rejected its request to stipulate the regulatory minimum must comprise 4,000 “manned” postal outlets, Australia Post will try to count automated postal lockers and kiosks as postal outlets to meet its regulatory requirements.

Australia Post is already preparing the community for this by running ads that show businesses using its parcels service automatically, without interacting with anybody at a post office.

The closures of thousands of bank branches across Australia, including hundreds of the last banks in towns, sparked outrage that led to the recent Senate inquiry which recommended an expert panel investigate establishing a public bank in post offices.

The closures of post offices that have already happened have sparked outrage and similar local protests—imagine losing thousands more!

LPO Group has launched a Parliamentary e-petition, which runs for nine more days, asking the government to allow licensees to expand their services at their post offices, including allowing them to open up to other parcels providers, not just Australia Post, to bring in extra revenue that will keep them financially viable and able to serve their communities.

LPO Group is also campaigning for the public postal bank, as the win-win solution to save all post offices.

Statement of expectations

The Albanese government’s revised Statement of Expectations for Australia Post, released in early July, is compatible with LPOG’s demands, including for a public post office bank.

The statement lists the following “objectives” for Australia Post that would be assisted by a postal bank:

1. Retain Australia Post in full public ownership and maintain an equitable letter service that meets the contemporary needs of the Australian people and Australian businesses. …

3. Maintain retail outlets throughout Australia, in accordance with the current prescribed performance standards, in particular in regional, rural and remote areas of Australia.

4. Support a financially sustainable Australia Post and investment in its networks and services to support improved national productivity and supply chain resilience, and meet changing business and consumer expectations.

Under “Service Expectations”, the statement specifies:

Retail Network: The retail network plays a vital role in enabling access to postal and other services, particularly in regional, rural and remote Australia. The Government expects that Australia Post will:

• maintain an appropriate mix of Corporate Post Offices and Licensed Post Offices (‘LPOs’), having regard to the views of workforce and licensee representatives;
• pay particular attention to the needs of regional, rural and remote communities in managing the network, in particular avoiding planned closures in communities where the Post Office is the only remaining provider of face-to-face postal and financial services; …

Other Services: Australia Post may continue to provide a range of other important non-postal services to communities, including financial, identity and government services. Australia Post should continue to offer services where they are commercially viable, having regard to the needs of communities and Australia Post’s financial sustainability. [Emphasis added.]

Robert Barwick said: “If the government is serious about these expectations for Australia Post, it must intervene to save post offices and act on the Senate’s recommendation to appoint an expert panel to investigate establishing a public postal bank.”

Sign Petition EN6326—Help grow our Local Community Post Office.

(Important: the petition is not signed until you have received a confirmation email. If you do not receive a confirmation email, check your junk or spam folders; or, you may not have typed in your email correctly. You may also need to prove you are not a robot. Please do every step until you have confirmed via your email that you have signed.)