Rural delivery the ‘canary in the mine’ of postal restructure
New Zealand post robust defense of a
model that knows has flaws has sobering
Echoes of the UK post office Scandal
writes Maria slay in this week’s Sho
shine well Maria I’ve I’ve seen the
documentary and and the drama
dramatization of Mr Bates versus the
post office and it was really shocking
stuff um and a massive corporate Scandal
um are there really parallels to what’s
going on here in New Zealand yeah
readers are probably familiar with the
the two Doos or the dramatization and
the doco that have been shown on New
Zealand television screens in recent
weeks you know it was massive over 900
postal workers wrongly convicted
prosecuted um over this you know it
system that was showing up uh Cas they
were the only ones they were the only
ones showing up these cash losses that
weren’t real and you know to to this
this day they are still fighting for the
compensation and obviously we haven’t
seen anything like that here but we are
seeing a big uh sort of change in the
way our Postal System operates New
Zealand posts announced that it will
merge mail and parcel deliveries into
one cized model um but this is rural
deliveries isn’t it this is across the
board over the next 5 years they will
gradually merge mail into Coura and
there will be one network and there’s
going to be something like 750 job
losses and then the other thing that’s
happening at the moment is it’s deed of
understanding with the governments up
for Renewal and that has to be done by
the end of June and so there are a lot
of people sitting on the sidelines going
well what is this new deed going to say
because we’re starting to see things
like New Zealand post announced the
other day that it’s cutting Saturday
deliveries to rural um customers so thin
into the witch you know what what’s
going on there’s a lot of questions
being asked and just for readers so they
know what does the deed actually include
what what does it cover well the deed
covers their their service obligations
and you know what they are supposed to
do so at the moment it’s 5day male
deliveries to Rural and 3-day to Urban
as we know but we don’t know what the
new structure will be particularly given
posts announcements and so look I you
know the career industry is watching
this with great interest because there’s
a lot of problems with the rural
delivery funding model and so I put a
request in to speak to David Walsh the
chief executive of New Zealand post and
I was just given a one liner uh this
does not affect rural delivery and that
that just can’t possibly be true because
they in my opinion because they have
signaled as far back as 2013 that
they’re looking at three-day deliveries
for Rural customers and the other
problem is we’re starting to see
examples of how the rural delivery
funding model just doesn’t work there’s
been a case in Hamilton um a couple
called Danny and Ian Kennedy who ended
up losing their run over disputes with
New Zealand post and now bear in mind
these are runs that these business
people pay for in the case of the
kennedies they paid $350,000 for what
they thought was an exclusive run and in
the court papers uh as part of their
dispute it’s Ave Ed that the funding
model was just didn’t work they were
just basically underfunded for all their
labor costs their vehicle costs they
ended up working for less than minimum
wage so there’s problems with that model
and The Courier sector are going well is
this the model they’re going to roll out
across Sur if they have less days it’s
going to be even less viable well that’s
that’s the other thing so if if they
were to cut two three days a week uh
that would presumably mean half the
number of Rural delivery contractors is
about 300 560 at the moment uh also you
know it’s like so the funding model
doesn’t work now how how would they be
making it work these are all questions
that New Zealand posters just not
answering and a report that was done 10
years ago said if because they get paid
this Benchmark rate for delivering the
mail if they were to cut it to 3 days it
simply wouldn’t be worth these rural
cers while so how are they going to make
it work do you think the court action is
y andz post is being fairly secretive
about this well the elephant in the room
to all of this is that I am aware that
there has been another case and
involving a group of couriers in another
part of the north Ireland the kennedies
are in the W and it wasn’t just them too
I might add there were other couriers
that were in a similar position this
other group uh it ended up that there
was a Professional Services firm that
did a report on the funding model and I
am told it concluded that the funding
model was inadequate and so New Zealand
post I believe settled with these
couriers and so I have put in a request
under the official Information Act to
get this report post hasn’t denied that
it exist existed but they have just said
that they have an obligation of
confidentiality so it won’t be released
so again we’re none the wiser as to what
is going on but if all that that is
correct then that that has big
implications for The Wider rural
delivery sector and also the wider model
change that they want to move to and and
of course wide implications for the
people who live in rural areas doesn’t
it well that’s right and just no one’s
talking about it at the moment um but
you know if you think about it okay so
it’s not the UK postal Scandal but if
you ever we think about some of the
parallel things
you know this is a corporatized model
that’s under stress because of change
it’s what we’ve got here um this is
potentially a nationalized payment
system that’s gone wrong and individuals
are having to Bear those
losses uh you know um post is very
robustly defending itself and not you
know talking about what the implications
may be for a system that they know has
got flaws so it seems to me there’s some
serious questions to be answered about
what’s going on hopefully uh it doesn’t
end up in a mess of covering thanks for
your time Maria thank you to support our
award-winning independent journalism
subscribe to nb. co.nz
Original article posted to NBR.co.nz on 15 April 2024. Read the article here: https://tinyurl.com/2cyb6fvu
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