Just an update. Thought this may be a candidate for a shonky. I review on a number of sites. Positively and negatively. I thought I’d see how A/P was fairing on Product Review.com.au. Over 14,000 reviews and rated 1.7. It appears there are many reviews coming in daily all for lost/damaged/undelivered items. Should Australia Post be overhauled or privatised for competition?
Not to defend AP. That’s out of how many customers and more than 200 million deliveries (averaged) per month?
AP is not perfect. We’ve our own sad/comic tales of mail mishaps. Do consumers deserve better?
The pathway of privatisation of essential services is far from proven effective. At best privatisation favours the most profitable over the least. One can look to the NBN, the fragmented privatisation of the National Electricity solution, or Airport privatisation for inspiration.
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Some services require Government funding to maintain effective operations. It has a social cost to lose those benefits to private businesses. I think the error that Governments have made about Australia Post, is that they require it to run at a profit, rather than run a best service that may cost taxpayers to subsidise. There are other examples of this social funding such as Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, though some (not a reference to you) argue that this should be privatised as well. Overhauling by funding and other changes to service are a good idea.
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Good points made. My thoughts were, if A/P’s rankings are similar to and in some cases worse than the independent couriers would the fear of privatisation make them more accountable and more inclined to update and streamline operations. I’m not meaning this as a threat but the thought that A/P could go the same way as Telecom, SEC etc.
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Thank you for your response, the questions you raised certainly need to be answered, public opinions help but it does also require Governments to look at what is socially required and fund those decisions appropriately.
I believe having a fear that privately run might make them more competitive, is not an answer. Cost of service is high and AP requested a larger increase to postal charges to help offset this but this was refused. All the services they provide and to still remain profitable in light of not being able to charge the required amount then usually requires reduction in staff and services and so further eroding of what we receive. Privatisation would lead to outcomes that would be worse than the current system. Prices would go up, that much is certain, and a further likelihood is that the service would decrease.
I’d rather than seeking to run at a profit and charge at the rate required to do that, that AP was funded to keep costs lower but provide the sort of service we as Australians would like to see. No need for profit based decisions then, just funding to make it run properly as a social service like the PBS, sharing the cost across all Australians.
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“funded” - that is code for higher taxes to entrench inefficiencies and prevent competition and new technologies.
Government postal services the world over have found they are incapable of adapting to changed circumstances. They are dinosaurs and need to be hit with a meteorite.
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Government subsidised does not require “government operated” - indeed the PBS is government funded with higher subsidies for poorer people but it is almost entirely private - the pharmaceutical companies are private, the pharmacies are private - and this allows the government to use its funding powers to keep costs low by refusing accreditation to dodgy operators and forcing generics to come in as soon as the patents expire.
I see the PBS as best practice in government procurement.
The whole kerfuffle over 60 day scripts was one example of innovation being driven by government for the benefit of consumers.
This simply could not have been done if the pharmacies were government owned store fronts as the unions would have rebelled. This is the problem with Australia Post - it cannot innovate because the employment impacts lead to disputation.
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At my home I have no difficulty getting my Amazon parcels left on my front veranda under cover and away from the street and prying eyes. Similarly for other couriers. Startrack is the only one which says there was nowhere to leave the goods and they were taken to the post office. They don’t even take it to the nearest LPO which has extended hours of opening but the one furthest from my home in the most difficult to park area which only opens M-F 8am to 5pm.
They even claim no one was home.
I have security cameras and no one even entered the driveway.
No use complaining because the drivers (subbies) are never the same.
I now avoid companies that use Startrack and I tell them why.
Hopefully, it will die away.
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I haven’t been to a Westfield in 10 years. I do all my shopping, except groceries now, online. Christmas, birthdays etc., (I’m reclusive) so I have a list of courier tracking sites on my phone. I too find that most couriers are quite good. Not all but I do find A/P the worst. I suppose companies allowing customers to chose from a list of couriers is not cost effective but I was curious as to peoples opinions and thoughts. I find others views very interesting. Thank you.
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Just as an aside. I have temporarily rectified the original situation until I can find a sign. I was going to mark it A/P deliveries but some of my parcels have breakables. 
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Yet I have had exactly the opposite experience with private couriers that say they tried to deliver but no one was home excuse, when in fact we have security cameras and a video doorbell that shows no attempt was made and to make matters worse we stayed home in the expectation of delivery. Startrack for us has been the most reliable service of them all. Personal experience may be different for all of us, but certainly flavours our responses.
Funding does mean taxes and it keeps the business Australian owned, DHL, Fedex and similar see all the cost imposed on us and any profits leaving our shores. Amazon Prime is a paid service whether or not in any given month you use the service and it certainly isn’t Australian. PBS doesn’t mean it is cheap to get the drugs from the Pharmacological businesses that often are again not Australian and the profits flow overseas, PBS just means the cost is defrayed across all Australians even when the cost is exorbitant. We pay some of our taxes to ensure we meet a social need. We all can see where Government funding is misdirected at times, that needs a change of how we get our Governments to respond to our concerns. Tax policy is another discussion that is often emotive, one that has been raised before on this site, and is far too complex to argue in this thread.
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I hope that the sign works for you. It might make those couriers which look at your house and think it is difficult to access as it is ‘secured’ by high quality fencing, see that access is possible and practicable.
Another additional solution where available is, when there is the opportunity to leave a delivery note associated with the package, indicate that there is an unlocked pedestrian gate immediately to the right of the driveway which can be used to access the house.
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True!
I’ve been ordering online quite often for several years now, and have never had a problem with either Australia Post or Star Track. Online tracking details have generally been sufficient for my purposes, and I haven’t noticed parcels going in circles or taking the scenic route as some other people have mentioned in this thread.
I haven’t had major problems with other couriers, either, but some don’t keep their tracking details up to date. I’ve had parcels delivered to the door when they’re still shown as still waiting for transfer from some distant location.
Most of my recent experience is with parcels, not letters.
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The last CEO of Ozpost said that the constraints put on her by government (the shareholder) combined with the requirement to make a profit made an impossible combination. She was forced to run it neither as a profit making business nor a subsidised public service. The option to run letter delivery as a commercial business, that was, and still is, haemorrhaging money was not open. But she was soon disposed of.
The current CEO has kept his mouth shut and his job so far but the latest substantial loss puts that at risk. You have to ask is the imitation autonomous corporate model useful at all. Perhaps Startrack service is so poor because it must provide the subsidy to letters?
{edit} Last year letters lost $M 384 as part of delivering a $M 200 overall loss.
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When I order something online to be delivered to my indicated address, I await my package with keen expectation.
With Startrack, I await the card in my letterbox, or sometimes slipped under the front door, telling me where I can pick my package from.
They are a discrace as a parcel delivery service compared to the others. They are a delivery service to a nearby post office branch.
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It came over TV that the PO would only be deliversing every second day.
We have not been advised which days that is supposed to mean. So we still have to go to the Post Box everyday. I would have thought that the PO would have advised us. It is very inconveneient not knowing which days they are going to deliver to us.
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I suspect that its all down to individual lazy drivers. “They” need to take more care when employing people.
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I would prefer that they monitored the delivery persons to see if they are actually doing their job correctly rather than have a more elaborate selection process.
Any repetitive job when there is constant pressure to move volume is an enticement to corner cutting whether the worker started out with the attitude of doing as little as possible or not. Especially if ‘everybody is doing it’ the best can be corrupted.
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That is for mail (letter) delivery only. Parcel delivery is daily. TV is what it is. Also a business dependant on convincing the viewer it is better than it really is. Accuracy and reliability less important than profit! Ensuring Australia Post can deliver more for Australians | Ministers for the Department of Infrastructure
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The trouble is they haven’t notified us which days they will be delivering in our area.
