When the fireworks on the Sydney Harbour bridge ushered in the new year the postage rate in Australia jumped from seventy cents to a dollar - and delivery will now take two days longer to arrive in your letterbox. The sad news is that last year Australia Post ran at a loss of $ 222 million.
Australia Post's chief summed it up neatly when he stated that "We are now a parcel company more than we are a letter company ". Email and the Internet have replaced the humble letter, but our liking for shopping on the net has seen parcel traffic increase by 3.6% last year, to a whopping $ 3.2 billion in revenue.
The problem is that we have two completely different types of services running side by side. The mail carrier on a motorbike drops letters into the letterboxes of Australians from remote islands on the Barrier Reef to snow lodges at the top of Mount Kosciusko - at the same rate nomatter the distance.
Compare that with the fares we pay when we travel. When we step on a bus, train, ferry or airplane the distance to our intended destination is reflected in the fare charged. The further we travel, the greater the cost - and that is pure economics.
It would seem fairly obvious to most people that Australia Post is slowly converting into becoming a courier company, and in essence that is what the parcel branch of Australia Post is now. It contracts to deliver what you have purchased to your door in double quick time and it enables you to track that delivery on almost an hourly basis.
At the same time as the postal motorbike delivery is moving house to house, the parcel delivery vans are duplicating that service delivering individual parcels to individual homes. The letter delivery is getting ever slower - and the parcel delivery ever quicker. As the sheer number of letters continues to decline it must inevitably reach the stage when the logistics of letter delivery merges with parcel delivery.
In the distant past, the daily post was the carrier of important documents and speed was of the essence. The service needed to be regular and reliable, and delivery occurred usually the next day after it was posted. Today, much has changed. Knowing that delivery may take several days longer, other arrangements must be made for documents that carry a time factor and we need to learn to live with a reliable - but much slower - delivery service.
There is every prospect that letter numbers will continue to recede and it is inevitable that eventually what remains must be consigned to the parcel network to drop in your letterbox within an acceptable time frame - and that daily motorbike service will cease to exist. In all probability, when that happens the postage rate will reflect distance. The rate for delivery within the city of posting will be lesser than the rate to a distant town in another state. Most likely, a special cheaper rate will apply to letters consigned to post office boxes where no street delivery is involved. Changing from home delivery to a Post Office mail box may be essential for those where fast correspondence turnover is a need.
The maxim of a common charge for mail delivery anywhere in a vast country seems quixotic in today's world of commerce. It relied on sheer volume to even out the flow of costs and when that flow depletes it becomes unworkable.
Just as we demand speed when we order those things that compliment our lifestyle and have that provided by Australia Post's parcel delivery service, we need to decide on our priority when sending mail. If the time delivery factor is not critical we can safely despatch it via the normal mail service, but if has a high degree of importance it is worth spending a little more and sending it by parcel post.
Such is the choice we all must inevitably make !
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