New Zealand Post is proposing to stop delivering mail to letterboxes, get rid of 700 posties, and replace them with “communal points” where people will go to collect letters. Photo / Chris Gorman
New Zealand Post is proposing to stop delivering mail to letterboxes, get rid of 700 posties, and replace them with “communal points” where people will go to collect letters. Photo / Chris Gorman
The Government is proposing that NZ Post stops delivering mail to some letterboxes and replace them with clusters of boxes where people will go to collect letters.
The Postal Workers Union of Aotearoa has derided the proposal, saying 10% of the population did not have internet access according to Census 2023. These people “have the most to lose without household mail deliveries”, the union said.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (Mbie) told the Herald, “the Government is seeking feedback on a proposal where NZ Post would be able to switch 5% of its pre-existing delivery points to communal delivery points per annum”.
MBIE did not address queries on the claimed proposal for 700 job losses, saying it was best addressed directly to NZ Post. This was despite NZ Post earlier telling the Herald to address its queries to MBIE.
The proposal is part of planned changes to NZ Post’s Deed of Understanding with the Government.
The proposal includes a requirement that “reasonable notice of these changes must be provided”.
The Postal Workers Union of Aotearoa has derided the proposal, saying 10% of the population did not have internet access according to Census 2023. These people "have the most to lose without household mail deliveries", the union said. Photo / John Stone
Part of this proposal would see NZ Post get clarity about whether it needed to deliver to letterboxes in new housing developments or if it could just deliver post to a communal point.
Other changes include cutting the number of days a week NZ Post is required to deliver mail. The current minimum in urban areas is three days, with a proposal to cut this to two days.
The five-day minimum for rural areas is proposed to be reduced to three days a week, and the five-day minimum for post office boxes and private bags is slated to go down to two days.
On MBIE’s website, the ministry said: “MBIE and NZ Post have been in discussion about providing greater flexibility in the deed as part of the 2024 review.
“The funding that NZ Post received in 2020 has now been exhausted.
“NZ Post now needs to operate a commercially sustainable mail service, i.e. without operating at a financial loss or seeking funding from the Government.
“The proposed changes in this section are intended to allow NZ Post sufficient flexibility to achieve commercial sustainability while still responding to New Zealanders’ ongoing need for mail.”
MBIE said: “Looking at actual mail volumes, addresses in urban areas currently receive around two letters per week and addresses in rural areas receive three. The proposed changes bring the minimum requirements on NZ Post in line with how New Zealanders are currently using the service.”
As well as cutting off letterboxes, the proposal to reduce the required “delivery points” NZ Post serviced could include a reduction in the number of PO boxes, “localised community hubs” and “collection points”, MBIE said.
Postal Workers Union national co-president John Maynard slated the proposed changes, and also took issue with what he believed was a “misleading submission process” for public consultation.
Other changes include cutting the number of days a week NZ Post is required to deliver mail. The current minimum in urban areas is three days, with a proposal to cut this to two days. Photo / Chris Gorman
Maynard said the 10% of New Zealanders who could not access the internet were particularly disadvantaged if the consultation was exclusively online.
He said, “the union expects some community resistance to any attempt by NZ Post to refuse to deliver mail to the traditional household letterbox”.
He also said “NZ Post wants to lay off all 700 of its posties and mail service employees and have the mail delivered instead by courier van”. Maynard claimed courier drivers would not want to be shouldered with delivering mail.
Concerns about NZ Post not delivering to certain addresses have been aired throughout this year, with a resident of new housing development Ara Hills in Ōrewa dumbfounded it would not service his address because it was categorised as rural.
“People are not getting important things like car registrations, medical appointments, fines, all those sorts of things and then if they don’t get it, they don’t know that they owe it and suddenly they’re in debt,” resident Penelope Jensen told Radio New Zealand last month.
MBIE’s general manager of communications infrastructure and trade James Hartley said: “The Government wants to know what people think about the proposed changes and how they impact them if introduced.”
Raphael Franks is an Auckland-based reporter who covers breaking news. He joined the Herald as a Te Rito cadet in 2022.
