MICHELLE ROWLAND MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS
MEMBER FOR GREENWAY

 FLETCHER’S CREDIBILITY HITS NEW LOW FOLLOWING AUSTRALIA POST DISCLOSURES

 
New evidence supplied to a Senate Inquiry has confirmed Minister Fletcher cannot be trusted when it comes to Australia Post.
 
On 21 April 2020 the Government announced its decision to cut postal service standards and sent the CEO to make their case in the Sydney Morning Herald:
 
“Letters have dropped 50 per cent some days and unaddressed mail, used by businesses for promotional material, has collapsed by 75 per cent…. it's almost like we have had five or 10 years squashed into one month ... the amount of decline that we could probably have expected over five years has happened in letters”
 
Yet responses to written questions by Labor Senators reveal these claims were not simply selective exaggerations, but stone cold nonsense.
 
Addressed mail volumes in February 2020 were 139 million before the COVID lockdown began, and then increased by 12 per cent to 155 million in March 2020 after the lockdown was underway.
 
Further, addressed mail volumes in April 2020 were 139 million — effectively on par with February 2020, before the COVID lockdown began.
 
No wonder people within Australia Post are angry such misleading figures were used as a trojan horse to try cut jobs and cut services.
 
Minister Fletcher has either been wilfully misleading from day one, or failed to do his research.
 
The Minister must clarify whether he is untrustworthy, incompetent, or more likely, a combination of the two.

WEDNESDAY, 22 JULY 2020