RMCtv : Universal Service Around the World: Australia

[POSTMAN]

In a new series of articles, we’re looking at how other countries have adapted their Universal Service over time. It comes after Ofcom presented options for reform of the Universal Service. In the third in the series, we look at Australia.



CASE STUDY: THE UNIVERSAL SERVICE IN AUSTRALIA

Australia has begun a shift towards ending daily deliveries as its postal service looks to grow parcels.

From March 2023, Australia Post phased out daily letter deliveries at six trial locations - Hornsby and Nepean in New South Wales, Brendale in Queensland, Camden Park in South Australia, Butler in Western Australia and Cranbourne in Victoria. The Australian Government has said there are plans to expand the new delivery model nationwide.

Letter deliveries will now be spaced out, occurring every second or third day, while parcels will be delivered five days a week.

Letter delivery in Australia has steadily declined, with the average household receiving just 2.2 addressed letters per week, compared to 8.5 in 2008. Australians are expected to receive less than one letter each week by 2032. Australia Post delivered half a billion parcels in its last financial year, or roughly 20 per person.

Its CEO, Paul Graham, said: ‘As eCommerce continues to boom and fewer and fewer Australians send letters, the changes to letters frequency will free up our posties to also focus on parcels and packages.’

Australia’s Communications Minister, Michelle Rowland, said: any changes to delivery ‘must ensure that a high-quality and sustainable letter and parcel service is maintained’.

Catch up on others in this series:
DENMARK
GERMANY

[qwerty2]

It’s a continent not a country

[enskied]

They use planes, trains, trucks and if they could kangaroos with built in pouches.

There's no rational comparison yet again.
We are smaller than eleven states of America and have a built in transport infrastructure. We connect by a few miles travel, not a days long haul.

[GRS]

f**k off RM…….. stop this bollocks of comparing us with other countries. We’ve spent years being compared to courier companies and now we’re being compared to other country’s postal service. Just like the comparison to other couriers this latest nonsense is totally irrelevant. Spending the last decade worrying about couriers andtrying to imitate them is one of the reasons this company is in the biggest mess possible and this latest obsession will only add to this. Try looking at our own strengths (if it’s not too late and we’ve spaffed them up the wall) and build and grow this company instead of acting like a load of panicking pussies and trying to be like everyone else home and abroad.

Royal Mail’s management at all levels must be the most ineffective, useless and incompetent bunch of people ever to be found running a company. If you smashed them all up and used the pieces to try and make one reasonable, competent and intelligent manager you would fail. Awful awful group of people!!!!

[nuisance]

So currently we're better than Denmark, Germany and Australia? Good stuff, we're staying that way, jog on management with your "look, everyone's s**t, come on, be more like them (it's cheaper)" .

[LouBarlow]

What a terrible idea this series is.

[derekm]

f**k off RM…….. stop this bollocks of comparing us with other countries. We’ve spent years being compared to courier companies and now we’re being compared to other country’s postal service. Just like the comparison to other couriers this latest nonsense is totally irrelevant. Spending the last decade worrying about couriers andtrying to imitate them is one of the reasons this company is in the biggest mess possible and this latest obsession will only add to this. Try looking at our own strengths (if it’s not too late and we’ve spaffed them up the wall) and build and grow this company instead of acting like a load of panicking pussies and trying to be like everyone else home and abroad.

Royal Mail’s management at all levels must be the most ineffective, useless and incompetent bunch of people ever to be found running a company. If you smashed them all up and used the pieces to try and make one reasonable, competent and intelligent manager you would fail. Awful awful group of people!!!!

Good post mate and every word true. Instead of being leaders in our industry we seem to be trying to copy what others do and always playing catch-up as for management can’t believe we had a boardroom full of people with no experience whatsoever in our industry hence the mess we are in.

[scoobydo79]

What drivil. Are You going to be looking at countries that continue with their 6 day a week letter delivery service and don’t treat their customers and employees with contempt? No ? thought not

[R5001]

This is really starting to piss me off. These countries are not us, how they work is not how we work. It's completely insane.

Plenty have called out how the "distances" involved make a massive difference, but it's hardly just that, tradition still holds an element, especially in cases like Australia where the country hasn't existed as we know it as long as our postal service has. Others have less or more competition for letter AND / OR parcels, or the service never reached the "next day nigh anywhere" level we have.

It's like comparing apples to oranges. The only thing they share is they're both fruit and f***ing round.

[GRS]

They really are just clutching at straws with this nonsense.

“Ooooh let’s come up with some cock & bull about how other countries run their postal service so that we can convince everyone in the UK that we should be doing the same”

If you are a manager at any level who reads this site then go look in the mirror because YOU are the problem in this company……… nothing else!!!

[qwerty2]

Next stop - cloud cuckooland

[Redshadow]

I seem to recall from talking to an australian who worked as a postie while visting his brother for a couple of years that Australian postmen often used mopeds or motorcycles to get between delivery points,had single roads that were numbered into the 1000's,had boxes that were at the bottoms of drives which could contain parcels and letters rather than walking to front doors and carried mail in rucksacks rather than pouchs slug across their bodies
So not the same atall

[Barnacle]

I find it truly odd that the management of RM do not recognise the strategic advantage letters and the posties that deliver to every single address, gives RM over its competitors in the parcel delivery sector.
Their constant talking down of the goose that lays the golden egg is baffling. Remove the letters and we are nothing.

[Barnacle]

I seem to recall from talking to an australian who worked as a postie while visting his brother for a couple of years that Australian postmen often used mopeds or motorcycles to get between delivery points,had single roads that were numbered into the 1000's,had boxes that were at the bottoms of drives which could contain parcels and letters rather than walking to front doors and carried mail in rucksacks rather than pouchs slug across their bodies
So not the same atall

Be great if there was a postie exchange program
When I’m CEO I’ll start that up.

[Mr Rush]

Can we transport the company board to Australia if they like it so much?