December 5, 2006
Hon. H. Coonan
Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600
Dear Senator Coonan,
I refer to the November 23 letter from Natasha Maclaren-Jones, an Assistance Adviser in your office, responding to my letter to you of September 26.
Ms Maclaren-Jones has done little more than find a vague off-the-shelf letter spinning about Australia Post and typed in my name. She has not responded to my letter.
So that you may not claim an AWB style defence, I ask that you revisit my September 26 letter.
It is important that you know what your policy in relation to Australia Post is doing to small business. It is important that you know how Australia Post is interpreting the Act you passed to serve its profit purposes, and therefore the Government’s, by taking revenue from small businesses like mine.
Every day, at newsXpress Forest Hill, we battle with a Government owned Post Office for the sale of items which until a few years ago were not sold at your Post Offices. Now, thanks to the power of the postal brand and their monopoly on postal products, you are landing customers in your shop for a fraction of what I can land them in mine.
In 1999, your Government facilitated the deregulation of newsagencies. You took away our exclusivity and allowed others to cherry pick our top selling magazines and newspapers. As a result, newsagencies like mine have been left with a supply model which is fundamentally flawed and a significantly higher customer acquisition cost. Your deregulation has left newsagents severely disadvantaged.
I agree that deregulation of the supply of newspapers and magazines was appropriate. However, since you did not put in place any review process, you do not have data to show what a mistake you made and how much you have hurt this small business channel. Good governance requires you review the impact of such significant deregulation on the 4,600 family businesses affected.
Australia Post has seized on the deregulation you brought about and now your Government is profiting from these regulatory changes.
I do not want you to have an AWB defence when newsagencies close down or go broke.
I do not want you to be able to say “I was not advised about thisâ€. This letter and my earlier correspondence advises you.
Deregulation of newspaper and magazine supply, while necessary, went too far and left newsagents with a model which burdens us with costs far greater than our competitors.
Australia Post is selling products which fall way outside what is permitted under the Act. Their Last minute gifts catalogue, which was released yesterday, provides proof. I have enclosed a copy for your information.
Australia Post is looking more like a newsagency every day. Newsagents cannot compete because we do not have the exclusive postal product which drives people to Post Offices. Australia Post is abusing its exclusive postal products and government ownership to the detriment of small business newsagents.
These are policy matters and go to heart of the Government’s small business credentials. I urge you to act for your small business constituents and not just the an enterprise the Government wholly owns.
Sincerely,
Mark Fletcher
Director
Springfield Consulting Pty Ltd trading as newsXpress Forest Hill
I read with interest your continued pursuit of a level playing field with Aust post, from my experience as long as the government holds the upper hand they will walk all over small business until small business is united. As far as Aust post is concerned in Lismore I own a newsagency in the main street and the post office is located 2 full blocks outside the CBD. We have decided to take on the post office but use our superior customer service to win the day. On the Aust post website we have found a Cost of postage estimation package and have purchased a small set of kitchen scales. We also have a Postpiont stand in our shop that allows us to get a 6% discount on stamps ( not much I know but its all about value adding). We tell whoever will listen to forget the post office and we can offer the same services but with better service, we will give estimates on costings to send all letters and parcels local and international and can sell all the bits and pieces to do it ie stamps packaging. It took some of the oldies a few goes to realise we can offer the same services as the post office only with better service and without the 30 minute walk. And as a bonus for me they buy my add ons instead of Aust Post because as you stated we sell the same stock. We as an industry cannot become like farmers that cry foul everytime something goes wrong, we must be proactive and take the fight to the opposition because lets face it we are only dealing with public servents, it doesn’t take much to better their customer service.
Luke Scott
“the Government’s small business credentials”
What would those be exactly?
The only time they have paid anything more than lip service to small and micro business issues is the continued feather bedding of pharmacies and the continuation of the apparent newsagent monopoly.
Don’t forget that it was the Howard govt. that brought us the GST admin overhead with no real offsets.
The government thinks it does have small business credentials. Joe Hockey, when small business minister, told me they were good for small business. He has not seen it from our side of the counter. On this Post issue I refuse to allow them to get away with ripping revenue out of the newsagent channel.