Monday, 20 December 2010

Post office closures !

The new year will bring the closure of twenty-seven post offices across Australia. The steady erosion of letter traffic is making post offices unprofitable and this will be just the start of the demise of this service.

It seems that contraction is inevitable. At present, every town, suburb and village has it's post office, but a decade from now there will probably be only a central post office to service a large area - and even then profitability will not be guaranteed.

Efforts have been made to save the postal service by increasing it's range of services and the most spectacular is it's prominence as a bill paying centre, but even this is faltering as direct debit becomes more widely accepted.

All logic suggests that the post offices become a bank. We badly need a government owned bank to curb the excesses of the " big four bandit banks " and here we have the ideal existing network - in place and ready to offer service.

What is needed is for the Federal government to admit that selling the Commonwealth bank was a mistake - and the courage to redress that error and get back into the banking business to provide an independent alternative.

Whether that happens will be a test of government resolve. Unfortunately time is of the essence. The disintegration of the post office system has begun with those twenty-seven closures. Unless the government makes an immediate decision - and backs it with action - we will quickly pass the point of no return.

There is no other alternative - if this valuable service is to survive !

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