Push for posties to come ONCE-A-WEEK and physical offices to be CLOSED as Australia Post headed for a $426 MILLION loss
- A strategic review was commissioned for Australia Post on May 2018
- It said the business was difficult for customers to use and predicted mass losses
- The report recommended letters be slowed down and sent out once a week
Australia Post considered slashing its deliveries to once a week and replacing thousands of offices with automated kiosks to stem growing losses.
A strategic review of Australia Post by PwC told the organisation in May 2018 found there were significant savings that could be made with losses set to hit $400million a year by 2021.
The PwC review recommended slashing the number of delivery days to just one would save $184 million a year '.
This option would enable Australia Post to deliver regular letters to delivery points once a week only,' it said.
Australia Post has been slammed in a report that said customers found it unnecessarily difficult to use before recommending major changes
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That could start with the removal of federal government legislation that required Australia Post to have a minimum of 4,000 shops, with at least least 50 per cent being based in regional areas. This would save $130 million a year.
The review, led by Australia Post CEO Christine Holgate, said the delivery service should lobby the government to have the 50 per cent rule to removed to give it more flexibility in changing how it's offices functioned, especially in the city.
It noted the move would not be able to be implemented successfully until the over two billion letters sent last year dropped to $1.2 billion.
'Downsizing the network may involve a transition over time to smaller-footprint locations, moving back-of-house delivery activity to centralised locations and replacing full-service locations to small-footprint automated kiosks with parcel lockers,' the review document seen by Fairfax newspapers said.
The report led by Australia Post CEO Christine Holgate (pictured) also recommended the delivery time of regular letters be extended by three days so they could be sent out once a week
The report also recommended offices be transitioned to automated kiosks with parcel lockers
Australia Post made $41 million profit in 2019.
In a statement, a spokesperson from Australia Post said the company regularly undertook reviews to help better manage its business practices.
'May 2018 is now some time ago, so any assumptions made at that point in time would now be outdated and we will not comment on the contents of a confidential report,' they said.
'We regularly review our strategies and seeks expert input for consideration by Board and management,'
'We know that many Aussies see Australia Post as the most present service provider in communities, ahead of schools, cafes, pubs and grocery stores. Australia Post is committed to continuing to be one of the most trusted service provider in regional and rural Australia,' they said.
