Around 200 West Hobart residents have packed into Lansdowne Crescent Primary School to protest the closure of their local post office, demanding a Senate inquiry into the shutting down of licensed post offices across Australia.
The community meeting on Wednesday night heard how an administrative mix-up between the previous shop owners and Australia Post led to the West Hobart Licensed Post Office being shut without warning.
Hobart City Council councillor Ryan Posselt, who lives in West Hobart, said the new shop owner had gone to extraordinary lengths to keep the post office running.
“She actually sent her newborn baby to India so she could complete the training required to be a post office operator,” Posselt said.
“It’s a 90-day course, and she thought, ‘I can’t have a newborn and do that, so I’ll send my baby to be with [the] grandparents.'”
The new owner, Indu Kaur, had worked in the store for more than four years before taking over from the previous owners, an elderly couple who were retiring due to health concerns.
Kaur said the licence was terminated over issues relating to the previous holder, who was unwell and unable to formally respond to a breach notice from Australia Post.
“When Australia Post became aware of the company changes, a breach notice was issued to Mary [previous owner] while she was overseas in Greece,” Kaur said.
“Shortly afterwards, Australia Post attended the premises and removed all postal operations without prior notice, advising that the matter had nothing to do with us.”
Kaur said her primary concern was restoring postal services to the suburb, adding that if she wasn’t granted the licence, someone else should be, because the “community should not suffer and bear the loss in result of this dispute.”
Posselt said the concerns were around administration of the license transfer, something he claimed the previous owner had never done before and was provided no assistance with.
“As well as the new owner being heavily pregnant at the time and both parties having English as a second language,” he said.
“Australia Post made no effort to provide them with support to ensure that the license transition was done appropriately, and there were some administrative errors that were made, but they were human error, good faith mistakes.”
Posselt said he had been in contact with Australia Post’s head of government relations but was told they had no intention of reviewing the decision.
“They’ve taken business away from a small operator and moved it deliberately across to their corporate stores,” he said.
Posselt said post offices were about more than just parcels and stamps.
“You have incidental meetings with members of the community,” he said.
“You run into a neighbour or a parent from the school, and you have a chat, and you wind up at the playground together, and that’s what the strength of communities is founded on.”
Australia Post said it had “been working with the licensee owner around a range of significant concerns, which unfortunately could not be resolved, leading to the closure.”
A spokesperson told Pulse that Australia Post’s position has not changed since closing the store.
The company said customers could access services at North Hobart and the Hobart GPO and that it was exploring installing free 24/7 parcel lockers in West Hobart.
The community meeting resolved to write to Federal Communications Minister Anika Wells requesting a Senate inquiry into licensed post office closures nationally, backed by a petition with around 1,450 signatures.
Posselt said Hobart Deputy Lord Mayor Dr Zelinda Sherlock will also put a motion to the Local Government Association of Tasmania calling on councils to raise concerns about the loss of local postal services.
