Public discussion about Australia Post for the last few years has specifically been scrutinising the profitably of the service/business.

But did you know that postal service is found in the Constitution under Section 51 (v).

51 Legislative powers of the Parliament

The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth with respect to: 

(v). postal, telegraphic, telephonic, and other like services; 

This section of the Constitution stipulates that the legislative powers for postal services in Australia lies with the Federal Government.

There was discussion at the Constitutional Conventions in the 1890’s about the level of power to be given to the Federal Government over postal services. Particularly whether the Federal Government should have the power to legislate for postal services only outside the boundaries of Australia, while each state would have the power to legislate for post within Australia. In all the Conventions where this was brought up (worded in several different ways) it was rejected by a large proportion, giving the full power for postal services to the Federal Government.

The History of postal service in Australia since Federation

At Federation a date was fixed for the former Colonial Postal Departments to be transferred to the new Federal Government and form the Postmaster General’s Department (PMG). All property was acquired by the Federal Government with the States being compensated in accordance with Section 85 of the Constitution. The telegraph lines and the postal service were then run by the Federal Government.

At this time mail was being placed on trains for delivery between connected capital cities, while the rest of the country was still receiving letter delivery by horse. More than 6,000 horses were travelling more the 45,000km per week to deliver post and telegrams to Australians.

In 1914 the first letters were delivered by airmail and the regular airmail service was set up in 1921. Three years later mail trucks replaced the horse and coach delivery.

A mechanised sorting machine was installed at the Sydney GPO in 1930 and motorbikes were introduced for faster delivery. It wasn’t until 1967 that Australian cities and towns were given postcodes to assist the sorting machines.

In 1975 the Postmaster General’s Department was split and the postal and telecommunications services became two organisations called Telecom and Australia Post. A few years later computers were installed at the Australia Post Headquarters and main offices.

Mail by rail ceased in 1989 and Australia Post invested in Trucks to move mail between cities and regional areas and two years later introduced their first ‘express service’ post.

In 1999 Australia Post upgraded their sorting machines to be able to read barcoded addresses on letters and five years later installed new machinery for parcel sorting.

The number of letters sent in Australia peaked in 2008 and has been declining by approximately 4-5% a year since.

You’re probably saying – why are you telling me all this?

Well, it’s got to do with adaptation.

Technology

Australia Post has adapted and changed over time to take advantage of available technology to improve its services for Australians. But is there a point in time when technology overtakes the actual need for a letter postal service?

In the 1980’s Australia Post carried nearly all written communication for Australians, that figure is now 1%. Most people use text, email, social media and other technological innovations to communicate in the written form, with letters being used for official business from some companies and Government (although Government is also moving people online).

What does this mean?

The Australia Post letter business is now running at a loss with the parcel business keeping the company afloat. Letter deliveries are being cut back, priority and non-priority services are being introduced and stamp prices are being increased. But is this enough?

The CEO of Australia Post Ahmed Fahour (who the SMH tells us he is highest-paid government employee at $4.6 million per year) seems to think that Australia Post’s Legislated Community Service Obligations (CSOs) are holding the ‘business’ back from making a profit. These CSOs ensure how and when the post is delivered to the citizens of Australia. But should the Government ‘service’ of letter delivery be excluded from the other parts of the organisation?

Do we see Australia Post’s letter delivery as a Government Service, whether it is profitable or not? Or is Australia Post a profit driven business that needs to succeed against its parcel-only competitors. The competitors who don’t have to provide the service of letter delivery five days a week to 98% of Australians?

With a multitude of ways of now communicating, this might be the start of the time where we don’t need letter postal services. If, like telegrams, letters are phased out, what is the exit strategy for Australia Post letter delivery and its letter users?

Photo attributed to Marko Mikkonen

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.