Australia Post

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (15:43): I would like to read into Hansard a letter I have just sent to Ms Allison Quach, the National Street Post Box Coordinator for Australian Post. I quote:

Dear Ms Quach.

I understand after reading through the documents provided in answer to my Freedom of Information Act request that you are the coordinator at Australia Post who is in charge of the allocation of Street Post Boxes across Australia and you have been dealing with my numerous requests to establish a street mailing box in the new suburb of Seaford Meadows, South Australia.

As you can imagine, I'm frustrated with the lack of response from your organisation. So are the thousands of residents of Seaford Meadows. In my view this is such a simple request, such a sensible request—yet it has hit a wall at Australia Post of surprising proportions.

As you said in an email that has been released 'it seems that Mr Picton seems very "bent" on getting a new SPB (Street Post Box)'. And you were right—I am fighting hard to get this basic service provision for residents.

This started out as a request for local residents for a payphone at the new Seaford Meadows Shopping Centre. The request for the post box was made in [the] weeks after that. For the payphone, a request was made to Telstra, it was balanced against their community obligations and the request was granted. In recent weeks the [new] payphone has been installed at the shopping centre and it has been welcomed by the community.

In comparison, the request to Australia Post from me, the federal MP Amanda Rishworth, the former state MP, the Seaford District Residents Association and 159 local Seaford Meadows residents who signed a petition have all been denied.

The contrast to the approach to this new suburb by Telstra and Australia Post is stark. Telstra is privately owned, yet Australia Post is owned by taxpayers. Payphones are expensive to install, run and maintain; yet a post box is significantly cheaper. Payphones are rarely used these days, but post boxes are still an absolutely necessary community service.

In one of your emails dismissing my application for the post box, you refer to Seaford Meadows as only having 1,652 residents. This was at the 2011 census, which also showed at that point there were 662 dwellings. As should be self-evident for a new suburb, this figure is growing every day. As of today there are over 1,000 dwellings suggesting that there are likely over 2,500 residents.

However, even bearing that in mind, there is a more important point of the general inequity of Australia Post's distribution of post boxes in inner metropolitan areas compared to outer metropolitan areas.

For instance, at the location residents would like to see a new post box, the Seaford Meadows Shopping Centre, there are no boxes within a 1.3 kilometre radius and only three within a 2 km radius. Compare that to inner city Hawthorn, Victoria where Australia Post's CEO is lucky to have his house. From there, there are 59 post boxes within a 2 km radius—a massive 20 times the service offering to residents in Seaford Meadows.

And an analysis of state electorates [in South Australia]— all with the same number of voters—clearly shows that discrimination in the Adelaide metropolitan area. So the electorates of Kaurna and Napier in the outer suburbs get 15 and 19 post boxes respectively, whereas the inner city electorates of Dunstan and Unley have 41 and 51 post boxes respectively. All of those areas have the same number of Australia Post customers. People in the outer suburbs get a level of service that would never be accepted in leafy inner-city suburbs.

The refusal to install this post box also comes after Australia Post has withdrawn important services for local businesses in southern Adelaide with the closure of the Lonsdale business centre. The Members for Reynell and Kingston have been leading a campaign to see that closure reversed—but yet again that has also fallen on deaf ears.

You have also refused to install a new post box at Silver Sands at Aldinga Beach—even though this location is definitely outside your stated standard of a post box within every 2 km inside the metropolitan area.

At a time when Australia Post is pleading for more people to use its mail service—your organisation is making it harder and harder for people to actually send a letter. This request will make it easier.

So after appealing to Australia Post's CEO many times, appealing to the then minister (now Prime Minister), demonstrating as you required the support of the community to regularly post items, appealing to the Postal Industry Ombudsman—I now appeal to you one more time to show some support for the people of Seaford Meadows.

At the very least I invite you to come to Seaford Meadows, see the suburb for yourself and meet with local residents. I would even be happy to pick you up from the airport! Yours sincerely, Chris Picton MP.