MEDIA RELEASE - DEPARTMENT SECRETARY REVEALS FLETCHER WANTED CABINET TO CONSIDER AUSTRALIA POST CUTS BEFORE COVID-19 - 7 AUGUST 2020
07 August 2020
MICHELLE ROWLAND MP SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS MEMBER FOR GREENWAY
DEPARTMENT SECRETARY REVEALS FLETCHER WANTED CABINET TO CONSIDER AUSTRALIA POST CUTS BEFORE COVID-19
Evidence to a Senate Select Committee has revealed what many have suspected —Ministers Fletcher and Cormann were planning Australia Post cuts prior to COVID-19.
In November 2019, the Government commissioned Boston Consulting Group to undertake a review of Australia Post.
The pre-COVID report — which cost taxpayers $1.9 million and has not been made public — is understood to proposed options to cut services, cut post offices, and cut jobs.
The Secretary of the Department let the cat out of the bag yesterday when he said: “my recollection is it was commissioned by Cabinet to come back to Cabinet for consideration, and it came back in its normal scheduled time, which just happened to be in COVID-19”.
The Morrison Government is refusing to release its internal Australia Post review, using a public interest immunity claim as an excuse to shield the document from Senate scrutiny or Freedom of Information requests.
When asked about the report, the Australia Post CEO didn’t hesitate in the slightest to dump it at the Government’s feet:
Senator Green: Has the report been released?
Australia Post CEO: The report is done on behalf of the shareholders, not for Australia Post. ….it wasn't done for Australia Post. We participated in the review but the review was not done for Australia Post. It's not our report.
And
Senator Carr: What was the nature of the structural change that they were proposing?
Australia Post CEO: They had many different options that they put inside that report. I think it would be fair to say that several of those options I did not necessarily agree with.
The Morrison Government is using every trick in the book to mislead and prevent accountability. It’s time they stopped hiding behind COVID-19 to cut postal services, and instead reveal what their internal review of Australia Post recommended.
