House debates
Wednesday, 11 November 2020
Questions without Notice
Australia Post
2:15 pm
Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
My question is to the minister for communications. Minister, we're counting down the sleeps until Christmas, but Australia Post is obviously in disarray. Indeed, constituents regularly report bills arriving after due dates, medical reminders turning up after appointments and Centrelink letters not being delivered until after deadlines for responding. These foul-ups are especially problematic for people with a disability, older Australians and people on low incomes, who simply can't afford to pay for Express Post, have their Centrelink cut due to delays or be hit with unexpected credit card charges. Minister, what are you doing about this, and, with Christmas only six weeks away, do you guarantee that our gifts will arrive on time?
Ms Burney interjecting—
Tony Smith2:16 pm
Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I do thank the member for his question. He's right to say that Christmas is peak time for Australia Post. It comes on top of a peak in parcel volumes driven by the extraordinary growth in demand for e-commerce over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. If you look at the figures for September, parcel volumes are up 59 per cent on the same month last year. Letter volumes are down eight per cent, continuing the longstanding trend where letter volumes are declining and parcel volumes are growing. When we overlay the trend in the growth of parcels with the normal Christmas peak, we expect parcel volumes for the peak week of Christmas this year for Australia Post to be up 35 per cent on Christmas last year. So it's very important that we prepare for this growth in parcels.
One of the things that we've done is provide temporary regulatory relief so some 2,000 staff can be moved from letters, where the volumes are declining, to parcels, where the volumes are increasing. Those staff can be redeployed to where the need is greatest. But that is not all we're doing. I'm asked: how are we preparing for the Christmas rush? Australia Post is recruiting over 5,000 additional staff across the country. There are 18 dedicated air freighters with increased flight frequency, including the first A321 freighter, which has 70 per cent more capacity than the existing 737-300 freighters. Australia Post expects to go live with its new Melbourne west processing site on 16 November; there are expected to be 3,000 more vehicles on the road this year than last year, reaching a total of 18,000 vehicles; and Australia Post is establishing 30 pop-up retail sites around the country.
So we've done our part as a government in providing regulatory relief so that Australia Post can redeploy resources to where they're needed. Was that measure supported by the other side of the House? No. There was no interest and no understanding. If those opposite had had their way, Australians would be waiting longer to get their parcels. We've introduced the necessary regulatory relief; Australia Post is taking the necessary operational steps. There's a big peak coming at Christmas, and Australia Post is preparing very hard to meet the needs of Australians. We need a good Christmas at the end of a tough year. (Time expired)