The Senate’s Inquiry into Australia Post continued yesterday, with what is most likely to be the last public hearing before the Committee is due to report on 17 May. Senators questioned representatives of Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Australia Post’s Directors and Chairman and former Chairman John Stanhope.
But it was explosive revelations from Christine Holgate’s appearance at the first public hearing that confirmed what we have said all along; that the “temporary” regulatory changes made by the Morrison Government last year was the first step in a secret plan to cut thousands of jobs, close hundreds of post offices, slash services and privatise parts of Australia Post.
In documents tabled by Ms Holgate, reform options presented to Australia Post and the Government by BCG, prior to the pandemic even hitting our shores, eerily reflect some of the regulatory changes implemented under the cover of COVID-19 that give effect to the Alternate Day Delivery Model (ADM). It’s all there in black-and-white and a copy of the document can be viewed by clicking here (starting on page 12).
In fact, BCG Managing Director and Senior Partner Miguel Carrasco said this, in his appearance at the Senate Inquiry yesterday:
“Some of the elements of reform pathway three, obviously, have been implemented as part of the temporary relief measures, or similar to that, and so I think that the analysis and advice has been useful to Government in its decision making in how to respond to the COVID pandemic.”
Miguel Carrasco, BCG Managing Director & Senior Partner
Obviously, he says…
For more than a year, the Union has been calling for the BCG report to be made public – suspecting what has now been fully revealed. The Government has claimed Cabinet confidentiality and public interest immunity over the report – meaning, without Ms Holgate’s tabling of her evidence, it could be up to 30 years before any aspect of the report would be publicly available, if ever at all.
We know Australia Post wants these lockdown measures extended and have intentions to seek such from the Government. In fact, they asked us to support their proposal to extend the regulations – we have, of course, declined this ridiculous proposition.
Australia Post must be stopped from locking in their lockdown measures. They are creating their own postal pandemic – it can be stopped and it must be stopped.
A necessary step to stopping the postal pandemic is to stop Australia Post and the Government from extending the regulations – we need to stop them from locking in their lockdown measures. The regulations must come to an end, as they are scheduled to, on June 30.
We need your help, we need you to contact your local Federal MP and cross-bench Senators, asking them to commit to opposing the extension of the lockdown regulations – to stop the postal pandemic.
You can do this, right now, using our simple online tool – it will take you less than one minute.
Did you miss our address to the Senate Inquiry? You can watch our opening statements below:
We have created a dedicated space on our website to manage all content relevant to the current Senate Inquiry, including the full recordings of past public hearings. This page can be accessed by clicking here.
Last year, your support for our campaign proved crucial to creating a political storm that resulted in the securing of an MoU that stopped Australia Post from cutting thousands of jobs in the middle of an employment crisis when millions were being added to our national dole queues.
However, the ‘temporary’ reforms have gone on to destroy members’ work/family lifestyle balance in delivery, forced posties to work unsafely, caused the loss of thousands of dollars in wages and annual leave entitlements to our van drivers, threatens to cut further into the take-home pay of our mail officers and has delivered the most serious of degradations to the services you provide to your communities.
With your support again, we can stop them from locking in their lockdown measures and stop postal pandemic, once and for all.
Yours faithfully,
SHANE MURPHY
NATIONAL PRESIDENT & NSW/ACT BRANCH SECRETARY
GREG RAYNER
NATIONAL SECRETARY
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