by leave—on behalf of the member for Kennedy, I move:

That this House:

(1) condemns the continued decline of essential postal and banking services in regional, rural and remote Australia, threatening the viability of country post offices and the communities they serve;

(2) recognises that a post office in the regions is not merely a business but an essential community lifeline for pensioners, farmers, small businesses and entire communities;

(3) notes that when a post office closes, residents are left travelling for hours to access basic services, including the elderly, people with disabilities, and those without reliable internet, who bear the greatest burden;

(4) rejects a system that sacrifices essential community services in pursuit of narrow commercial returns, treating regional Australia as an afterthought rather than an integral part of the nation; and

(5) calls on the Government to take immediate and decisive action to secure postal operations in regional and remote Australia by:

(a) demanding Australia Post has a leadership and approach that enable a future for regional Australia, committed to preserving and strengthening essential services in rural, regional and remote communities;

(b) intervening to ensure no regional or remote community is abandoned without reasonable access to essential postal, banking, and face-to-face financial services;

(c) delivering permanent, properly funded arrangements to keep vulnerable licensed post offices operating, including a proposed minimum annual support payment of up to $100,000 for eligible regional, rural and remote outlets;

(d) supporting the expansion of Australia Post's role in delivering essential banking services, including consideration of a publicly backed postal banking model to restore access to financial services in communities abandoned by the major banks; and

(e) further demanding that Australia Post returns to its fundamental obligation to serve all Australians regardless of postcode or commercial profitability and protect the vital role of country post offices in sustaining regional communities.

There were 173,000 people residing in Mayo at the time of the 2021 Census. I have no doubt that we are closer to 180,000 now. Mayo is a rural electorate of more than 9,000 square kilometres. We have 71 Australia Post outlets. There are five corporate post offices; 36 licensed post offices, known as LPOs; and 30 community postal agencies. With very few large centres, those outlets are the beating heart of many of our small towns and hamlets, particularly since the banks have deserted us. A local post office is one of the few essential services that people can access close to home, and it's even more vital for those with unreliable internet access. There is little to no public transport across my community, especially compared to those for people who live in the cities and suburbs. Unfortunately, we have seen the closure, over the years, of a couple of our post offices: Summertown and Verdun.

It has been reported that Australia Post plans to close further LPOs and/or make changes to licensing for regional and rural LPOs. This has raised enormous concern in my community. We've seen from the Post Office Network and Licensed Post Office a reimagined plan. Let me tell you what 'reimagined' means. Reimagined always means closures. It means consolidation, rationalisation and a move to other businesses. There is a real and deep concern in our community that, as the banks deserted us, the post offices will desert us too.

Australia Post reported record highs during the 2025-26 peak season, delivering almost 111 million parcels in the peak November-December period, lifted by increased online purchasing. Rather than developing plans to close and rationalise Australia Post services, the government should task the organisation with the identification of alternative models to best support its regional network. This should include consideration of more sustainable funding arrangements such as the annual support payments for eligible regional outlets, raised by the member for Kennedy.

Further, Australia Post's role in delivering essential banking services for regions must be not only explored but implemented. As the member for Kennedy suggests, there could be consideration of a publicly backed postal model. Postal banking could, as I said, ensure financial services for communities that the banks have left.

I'd also like to see the Australia Post mail delivery poll requirements better delivered so that Australia Post genuinely provides a letter service which is reasonably accessible to all on an equitable basis. Australia Post has previously advised me that it's critically aware of the value and importance of the postal service to Australian communities and of the requirement that a mail service be reasonably accessible to every Australian on an equitable basis, and I want to see this honoured more than just by lip service.

We people who live in the regions already suffer enough. We have fewer health services, we have fewer financial services, and it's all by virtue of postcode. We pay the same amount of tax as every other Australian, and we deserve the same level of services, so I support the member for Kennedy's call to protect this vital service of country post offices sustaining regional communities.

My community is far smaller than the member for Kennedy's, but I know, from my conversations with the member for Kennedy, how vital Australia Post services are to the people of north and west Queensland and how much the member for Kennedy fights for those people and their services every day. We need to ensure that everyone in Australia has equitable service delivery with respect to Australia Post. It really is the lifeblood of so many of our small community towns and must not be allowed to diminish.

Is there a seconder for the motion?

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

I rise to speak on the motion put forward by the member for Kennedy. The electorates of the member for Kennedy and I are very similar in many ways: in terms of dimensions, demographics, scale and the fact that a large chunk of them is cut off for a large part of the year due to floods and the variety of weather events that we get across the north and the far north. For us, the wet season is the summer, and summer is Christmas, and Christmas usually means presents for a lot of kids, and the only way that happens in places like Lockhart River, Weipa, Aurukun and the NPA is with Australia Post. It is absolutely critical every year. With the advent of Temu and Amazon and all those sorts of things, parents are getting better access to better toys and better options for the kids. But a few years back, a series of natural disasters meant that Christmas didn't arrive in Weipa because the post was held up, and there was a tough conversation for a lot of parents and a lot of families about why Santa had decided to skip out that year. That's what Australia Post means.

Australia Post is a connection to the world for a lot of our remote and regional communities. It is their ability to connect with loved ones. It is their ability to express and share that love at times like Christmas and birthdays and things like that. For a lot of our PALM workers, it is Western Union. It's how they send the money that they earn humping the bananas, working in the sugarcane and doing all the stuff in the agricultural industry that we so desperately need. It's how they get that money back home. It's how they improve the lives of their families back in the South Pacific and it's the pride that they feel in that. That's what Australia Post does.

Australia Post these days is a business, but it's more than a business. It's an icon. It's an institution. It's something that Australians hold very dear, and that's why we have to support it. It's why we've actually managed to expand Australia Post in my area of Leichhardt. Cooya Beach, some 35 minutes north of Port Douglas, is now, for the first time ever, getting letter deliveries. We're working really hard with Daintree Village and the Douglas Shire Council to ensure that they continue to get post. It looks as though there'll be some kind of arrangement with the local council—some land and possibly a building—to ensure that that service remains. We've also worked hard to ensure that Australia Post remains in the Torres Strait on both Horn Island and Thursday Island, because it is an actual life force. It is where people go to bank. In my part of the world, it's where people buy their electricity cards. It is where they know they can get some good and sound advice. In a lot of those small communities, the post office is also a source of employment—bit of economic opportunity for the people living in those spaces. It is where people go and gather. They have a chat and they talk about the things that they've just bought.

When I was in Lockhart River for the first time, I arrived at the same time as the post and spent a good half an hour with the mayor, unpacking all of the Amazon packages that had arrived. I saw how happy the community was to get their packages—to get that interaction with the outside world—because Lockhart, at the time, was cut off. I'd flown in, and we were having a chat, and he said, 'Look, we've got to go grab the things.' People were queuing up, waiting for their things, and the kids' eyes lit up, and the parents' eyes lit up because they got that blender that they needed—there's no Kmart in Lockhart River—or they got the rice cooker that they'd had on order for a while. It's these little things that are the connection to the greater world—the connection to the appliances and the life that so many of us get to take for granted because we happen to live in larger places with access to those sorts of things.

For over 200 years, Australia Post has been essential to the Australian way of life. Each year, 2.2 billion articles of post are delivered. I know that, even today, I get excited when I see something from Australia Post has arrived—provided it doesn't have a little window in it, because that usually comes out of my pocket! We continue to support our regions, and we continue to support our regions through Australia Post. I know that the member for Kennedy is incredibly passionate about ensuring that the regions, such as mine and his, continue to have access to something that has been such a big part of Australian life and is essentially a part of the Australian identity. I'll continue to fight for Australia Post not just in Leichhardt but right across the rest of the country.

The dark clouds of uncertainty hang over our post offices—in particular, our country post offices. Make no mistake: our country post offices are under threat. If we are not careful, we are going to lose them. They are going to close before our eyes. In recent years, dozens and dozens of post offices have closed in country areas. They are essential lifelines for country communities. We must keep them open if we want strong, vibrant and viable country communities, but they are under threat. Make no mistake: they are under threat. They are under threat from Australia Post, the very organisation which needs to be caring for them and nurturing them and looking after not only these small-business people but country communities.

In recent years, we've seen the major banks pack up and leave. They've said: 'Just go and do your banking at the Post Office. It'll be alright.' We've seen services slowly but surely stripped away from our country communities, and now we face losing our post offices too—the last place where people can access basic face-to-face services like financial services and banking. Instead of squeezing country post offices out of business with unviable business models, Australia Post needs to actively support them and not let them wither on the vine. We've been watching what's happening at Australia Post and how they're doing some type of change plan for the future. Whatever it is, they need to ensure the ongoing viability of our country post offices, otherwise all we're going to be left with in country Australia is parcel lockers. What concerns us is that Australia Post is not going to say to country post offices, 'You have to close,' but is going to slowly let them die by not putting in place a viable financial model that lets these vital small businesses thrive. At the end of the day, they'll say: 'Well, do you know what? Those small-business people just didn't want to do it anymore, so, sorry, that's another post office that must close.'

But the alarm bells are ringing loud and clear from right across the Central West. Kaylene Philpott is the owner of the Molong licensed post office, a post office which has survived incredible hardship, including recent floods. Kaylene writes:

The next nearest full-service Post Office is approximately 40 kilometres away. For elderly customers without reliable transport, for farming families in the middle of a busy season, and for people who cannot manage their affairs online, that distance is not a manageable alternative. It is a genuine barrier to accessing services they depend on.

This is not simply a commercial concern. Molong's Post Office is one of the last locally accessible points for banking, bill payment, identity services, and government-related functions in this community. If it weakens, the people who would feel that most are those already navigating the greatest disadvantage.

Craig Williamson, who runs the Manildra Licensed Post Office, is a man who is also very concerned for his community. In fact, I saw Craig last week. I was driving through Manildra and noticed the Australian flag was looking a bit worse for wear. I went into the post office. Craig had the key, and before you know it we had another Aussie flag flying high in the town. But Craig is worried about the future of postal services in Manildra. He says:

Manildra has no other bank in town. The nearest full-service Post Office is 50 kilometres away, a two-hour return drive on country roads with no realistic public transport alternative. For an elderly resident, a farmer in the middle of a busy season, or a family without reliable transport, that is not a manageable substitute.

What he wants is action. He wants change in Australia Post. He says:

The Manildra post office is the hub of this community in a very practical sense, and what happens here matters well beyond the walls of this outlet.

Our eyes are on Australia Post. The chief executive officer of that organisation must be held to account.

The CEO must be called out if there is some type of secret plan to close post offices, and the Australian government cannot wash its hands of it either and say: 'You know what? Australia Post functions independently. We have no control.' The Australian government has every control, and both the Australian government and Australia Post and its CEO must be held to account for what's happening to our country post offices.

I rise to speak on the motion on postal services put by the member for Kennedy. I first want to acknowledge what the member for Kennedy has said about the decline of postal and banking services in regional and rural Australia and how important these institutions are to our local communities out there. In regional and rural Australia, post offices become hubs for the community activities. They support small local economies around them, and people rely on them for connection. I also acknowledge the stress and the hardship that the closure of a post office can cause in a regional community.

But I also want to say that post office closures in metropolitan Sydney cause considerable angst. A year ago we saw the Kingsgrove Post Office close without any community consultation after the Rockdale Post Office also closed. People from across the Kingsgrove community wrote to me because they were pretty angry about the closure and wanted to know why no-one had been consulted. I understand that Australia Post has to make some commercial decisions. In fact, I know it makes some of these decisions so that it can keep regional post offices open. I understand there is little point in maintaining collection of post offices within 10 minutes of each other in metropolitan Sydney when more resources have to go and should go into maintaining regional post offices often hundreds of kilometres apart.

But the point is that these decisions are often made without community consultation. While the figures might show that a post office does not have enough people coming through the door, in reality, it is the quality of these interactions that makes all the difference. It might be the only post office within walking distance of a densely populated area. It might be surrounded by elderly residents who depend on it for banking services. It might employ someone who speaks a second language. In a community like mine, people who speak that language know they can go there for assistance. None of that is necessarily reflected in the bare numbers on the books.

I am therefore very pleased that my petition to stop the closure of our postal services was heard by Australia Post. There is now a community consultation obligation whenever Australia Post considers closing a post office, and that gives the community an opportunity to explain why that post office is important and why it should remain open. I want to reaffirm my commitment to the people of Barton. Wherever there is a service closure, including when an organisation such as Australia Post closes its doors, I want to hear about it from you first. I want to help you advocate, and I want to make sure that the services you need remain in our local community.

I say to the member for Kennedy that I appreciate his advocacy and what this motion seeks to achieve. While I do not agree with all the actions listed in the motion, I agree that we need to keep our finger on the pulse of Australia Post. We need to continue working with Australia Post to find innovative ways to improve its long-term sustainability and to keep services in the regions, and reforms must be transparent, inclusive and collaborative. I do not want to have to run another petition every time Australia Post makes a mistake. It should identify these risks and make changes before harm occurs, because it has a community service obligation. Australia Post serves the community—not profit, not the salaries of its leaders. The community should be front of mind whenever it makes a decision about postal services.

This government is committed to getting the balance right between the financial sustainability of Australia Post and the needs of the communities it serves. But we need to work together to get there. My door is always open. Australia Post belongs in the hands of everyday Australians, and I'm so committed—as is this government—to keeping it that way.

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.