Campbelltown Post Office

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley) (16:59): I rise today to talk about our updated campaign to save the Campbelltown post office. Obviously, the Campbelltown post office has been quite the service in Campbelltown for several decades and I am continuing the fight to make sure that we can do everything possible to maintain that level of service for the good residents of Campbelltown.

On 23 May, I was notified by Australia Post that they unfortunately planned to close the Campbelltown Australia Post post office. Initially they said it would close by 20 June and it was later corrected to August. Well, that is just not going to fly with my local residents and that is why we have immediately taken up the fight, by way of a hard copy petition and also an e-petition, to make sure that we can do everything possible to keep Campbelltown post office open as long as possible.

I think we have a number of things that are going in our favour. We have a number of residents who have rallied together, we had a street-corner meeting that was attended by dozens of residents and, in addition to that, I have made several hundred submissions. At last count I had over 600 pieces of correspondence that I will be delivering to Australia Post and I am quite confident that, by the end of this month, that number will surpass 1,000 letters. So I will be writing over 1,000 letters to Australia Post because the people of Campbelltown want to keep their post office open for as long as possible. I will not back down until Australia Post admit that they have stuffed up here and that they will go on to keep the Campbelltown post office open.

You might ask who uses a post office. Well, a post office like this is revered by many in the community. What I have learnt in recent weeks is that some people only use that post office to pay most of their bills. If you sit outside in the car park in the Campbelltown shopping centre what you see every couple of weeks is that people get their pension from one of the local banks and they literally come from the bank and go straight to the post office, pay their bills and do their shopping at the Campbelltown shopping centre. Many people only walk; they do not drive. Some of them are unable to catch public transport and so they depend upon the post office that is literally right outside their house.

By Australia Post asking residents to travel several kilometres away just lacks complete heart. It is unempathetic and that is why we are going to continue to take up the fight to Australia Post, because we know that they can do better. They also have a landlord who is willing to come to the party and willing to accommodate their request. We know that Australia Post is trying to cut costs where it reasonably can; however, this is massive overkill.

What I have learnt in recent times is that apart from having a landlord that is willing to do the right thing, willing to negotiate and willing to even reduce the footprint of Australia Post, if that is what their intention is, you also have a newsagent that has applied to be, if you like, some sort of subagent to make sure that they could have some sort of parcel delivery service still at the shopping centre but have it related to the newsagent.

As I said, we had a street-corner meeting that was attended by dozens of residents, and I thank Channel 9 for also capturing the rage of local residents and helping us to broadcast the message of local residents, because at the moment Australia Post is not coming to the party and is not responding.

Since that time, they have suggested some form or, if you like, some sort of temporary parcel-type service where packages and parcels can be picked up. That is not going to be enough. All I can say is that that e-petition and hard copy petition momentum is gathering steam. As I said, I will be shocked if I do not reach over 1,000 signatures by the end of this month. We will continue to lobby Australia Post to make sure that the Campbelltown post office stays open.

This is a much-loved service, much depended on service by literally hundreds if not thousands in the local community. You cannot just expect people to travel several kilometres away to pay their bills, to get their passports done, to go and buy stamps. It is not good enough and, therefore, we are going to continue the fight to make sure that we keep this post office open here in Campbelltown as long as possible.

I want to take the opportunity to thank local residents for having their say. Thank you to the local residents who have had their say via a hard copy petition and via our e-petition. Together we will continue the fight and we will do everything possible to make sure that we can keep the Australia Post Campbelltown post office open.