#BringbackNed: Residents push for Australia Post to bring back their beloved postie

More than 70 residents have lodged complaints about their new delivery drivers but have received “useless and miswritten” responses from Australia Post.

Australia Post is being called out for “passing the buck” after more than 70 North Rockhampton residents lodged complaints about the loss of their beloved postie, Ned.

Nerida Hutchen had been servicing the areas of Rockyview, Glenlee and Glendale for the past eight-and-a-half years.

When she returned from a two-week break in January, she was advised she had been taken off that route, effective immediately.

Residents have been riled up as they believe Ned is the best postie - she knew where to leave parcels, who lived where, and even had dog treats in her car.

In her absence, the job has been done by other subcontractors who have repeatedly misdelivered parcels and multiple residents have reported the delivery driver hasn’t even attempted to knock or call out and just left a slip in the mailbox to collect the parcel at the CQUni post office.

Some parcels have been delivered and left in front of dogs, who have destroyed hundreds of dollars worth of items.

This publication published a story on January 27 with Rockyview resident Brodie Millan who had rallied a campaign for his neighbours to get behind Ned and send complaints to Australia Post.

At the time, Australia Post sent a statement to this publication which said Ned was a subcontractor and was managed by a principal contractor.

Residents have shared their frustrations at Australia Post “passing the buck” and they say the organisation is not willing to address the issue.

“I feel that they have pretty much said ‘not our problem, they are contractors and can do want they want’,” Mr Millan said.

“If I was a business and had a contractor causing me this much grief I would be doing something about it.”

This publication reached out to Australia Post last week for an up-to-date statement on the matter and many questions went unanswered.

“We thank the community for their feedback which has been passed on to the principal contractor, who manages the team of delivery subcontractors in the area and makes any necessary operational changes to routes,” an Australia Post statement read.

“If customers have concerns about their deliveries, we continue to encourage them to contact us directly about their specific delivery issues so these can be followed up.”

The statement asks residents to contact Australia Post about their issues, of which many have done.

In the past three weeks, more than 70 residents have sent complaints, all of which have had varying responses from Australia Post.

One response has multiple errors and grammatical mistakes, written below word for word.

“We have received as response from the Rockhampton Delivery Centre. They have advised us that the deliver run for your area is arranged by a principle contractor. Nerida is a Sub contractor whom works for the Principle contractor, it is Principle contractor role to ensure all areas are serviced for Australia Post under his contract. It is not Australia Post’s decision who does what runs as we are not able to change who is contracted to certain areas. Please let us know whenever there are delivery issues and we can definitely look into it for you to ensure your experience is as good as when you delivered by Nerida”, it read.

Another response states Australia Post will pass on the feedback to the management of the delivery centre and “they will take this up this request for consideration”.

Other responses have ignored the complaints and have said thanks for passing on the wonderful feedback.

One response posted on January 27 even said feedback had been sent to the delivery centre to advise if the contractor “could consider assigning Ned back to the delivery route. Please allow within 5 business days for any response.”

Another response read: “Thanks for reaching out again in relation to your delivery driver. I can certainly see that your community was strongly impacted by the great relationship you had with your previous delivery contractor and understand why you would be seeking more information on the changes that have taken place.

This response went on to say “please allow your new driver some time to settle in and of course reach out with any specific issues to the customer service team who can then follow up with your local delivery centre where required”.