More from Australia Post on the situation with freight to and from Western Australia

We received this updated information from our Account Manager at Australia Post corporate late yesterday:

Introduction of a WA Emergency Service:  

With key road and rail transport arrangements into and out of Western Australia significantly disrupted or unavailable, we are obliged to declare an emergency ‘force majeure’ event. This means the acceptance and delivery of Parcel Post (eParcel) and StarTrack Road Express consignments under the terms and conditions of your existing agreement are unfortunately suspended and cannot be offered in the short term.

Until these critical lanes can resume efficiently, we have stood up a replacement “WA Emergency Service” option that includes an additional temporary levy to assist with the significant increase in road transport costs into and out of Western Australia. This will help ensure we can continue to deliver for our customers. The WA Emergency Service terms are outlined below and apply until the force majeure events come to an end.

• The WA Emergency Service will incur an additional emergency measure cost of 40% (ex GST) of the freight charges currently set out in your agreement.
• The WA Emergency Service fee is temporary and will apply to all articles lodged for interstate delivery into, or from, Western Australia.

The WA Emergency Service will come into effect for any parcels lodged and/or manifested from Monday, 28 November 2022. The fee will appear on your invoice and will be payable in line with your existing arrangements.

There is currently no change to our Express Post and StarTrack Premium services.

It is interesting to me that there has been no coverage on this in the news.