Australia Post boss Christine Holgate pleads to keep Covid relief

Christine Holgate has guaranteed no forced ­redundancies, staff pay cuts to prevent the package being overturned.

Australia Post chief executive Christine Holgate. Picture: Gary Ramage

Australia Post boss Christine Holgate has guaranteed no forced ­redundancies and no staff pay cuts in a last-ditch plea to prevent a temporary COVID-19 relief package being overturned by parliament.

As key crossbench senators prepare to meet Australia Post and unions on Monday, the chief executive has written pleading for a year to allow the COVID-19 ­relief plan to work.

Key Senate crossbench parties Centre Alliance and One Nation, who control four critical votes, have not decided if they will support a motion to overturn the package being backed by Labor and the Greens.

The changes, announced by the government in April, allow Australia Post to deliver mail every second business day in cities and extend delivery times on some routes, and apply until June 30 next year.

But Labor communications spokeswoman Michelle Rowland has labelled the changes — which she is concerned will become permanent — as a “cheap shot” at posties and a “breach of community trust”, following the unions warning the changes would put 2000 posties out of work.

Ms Holgate explicitly dismissed as “untrue’’ suggestions that there will be 2000 forced redundancies. “I am giving you my word today that there are no plans for forced redundancies,” she wrote.

She said the pandemic had ­accelerated the decline in letters, with volume falling 36 per cent in May on the previous year. “The ­average postie now carries just one-third of the letters they did 10 years ago,” she said.

But demand for parcels had exploded during the pandemic, with Australia Post processing on average two million parcels a day every day for 10 weeks.

With tens of thousands of businesses relying on Australia Post to connect with their customers, the size and weight of parcels during COVID-19 had increased dramatically, resulting in the majority of these parcels not being able to be delivered by posties safely on their motorbikes.

“In order for these parcels to be delivered safely, we need these items to be delivered by our people in vans,” Ms Holgate said.

She said Australia Post was asking for the temporary relief “while restrictions on travel, domestic and international air ­capacity, and social-distancing and hygiene measures in our facilities and vehicles continue to significantly impact our ability to deliver’’.

Australia Post directors and staff must refrain from activities that give rise to political partiality, according to guidelines for government business enterprises. During the same-sex marriage plebiscite, Australia Post instructed some post offices to take down rainbow pride flags, citing that clause.

But in her letter, Ms Holgate said she wanted to write personally “to provide you my commitments in regards to how we will respond to the temporary regulatory relief, outline our support for our workforce, and to ensure you are fully briefed on the importance of the temporary relief to our operations, our people and our customers’’.

“There have unfortunately been a range of false claims made about the temporary changes to our regulators. I want to clearly dispel these claims in this letter.”

But on Sunday, Ms Rowland said the government was refusing to disclose data about Australia Post’s actual letter losses as a result of COVID-19. She said Australia Post initially stated letter volumes had halved in April, while unaddressed promotional mail had fallen 75 per cent.

Australia Post said last week the decline for that month compared with the same month last year was 28 per cent, while the drop in May was 36 per cent.

“If the figures proved addressed-letter volumes didn’t ‘collapse’ in April as was originally claimed, then the attempt to rush through these changes without scrutiny or consultation would be even more untrustworthy than first suspected.”

ADDITIONAL REPORTING: DAMON KITNEY