Auspost has a number of pages enumerating what is currently not happening. This one links to others. No guarantees and a Priority Letter is a Regular Letter (eg slow) and ‘the Government has made temporary changes to Australia Post’s performance standards. These changes will apply until 30 June 2021, subject to review.’
https://auspost.com.au/about-us/news-media/important-updates/coronavirus#domestic
One choice as far as we can determine.
Tuesday 8th Oct At the local PO.
The post Mistress is never wrong. Also too nice a lady to ever disagree with.
On the other hand our need has been to the profit of AP and hopefully benefits the Australian Commonwealth budget, so some good might come of it. 
P.S. I did consult one of the locals for further advice, given they have a close relationship to some in Canberra. Not a lot of interest I’m sad to report.
AP has a number of pages, some of which contradict each other.
I am not sure how you got to those pages, noting ‘your’ URL is …/general/… and all the relevant COVID-19 changes I found seem to be under …/about-us/… , all via clicking through the Coronavirus: delays and other impacts atop their home page. Does one of those under ‘about-us’ take one to that page?
Australia Post (AP) and before that the PostMaster General’s department (PMG) were not set up to be a business. PMG existed and now AP exists as a service, a postal service for the delivery of letters and parcels ( Australia Post closed its telegram service on 7 March 2011).
Our Australian postal service has three primary purposes:-
The notion that the public postal service of Australia has to make a profit is a furphy.
There are many services that governments in Australia provide to residents & citizens, and the postal service is one of these.
If it is proposed that the public postal service can choose to sort certain mail items (letters) out of the mail stream in order to deliver them slower, that proposal is horrifying.
Yes when you click on the plus signs and the More Information phrases on the webpage you get taken to the more detailed information, two of which I took screenshots.
I was only thinking a few mornings ago how the best man and the groomsmen still read out the “telegrams” at weddings when a large percentage of the guests probably have no idea of what a telegram was.
I guess they will update the ritual to emails or Facebook posts.
Mail from Tassie to the mainland capitals is taking 2 weeks at the moment. We posted some letters (cards) to Brisbane on the 24 August 2020 and they arrived today.
We also ordered something online (a broken lego piece) from Melbourne which was posted on the 25 August 2020, and it arrived in Tassie today.
Looks like the 2-3 business day delivery which has occurred in the past to capital cities is now 10 days.
A somewhat slower service when intrastate flights are involved, and a somewhat slower service when sorting centre in Melbourne is involved - both are understandable in current situations.
But my complaint is that Australia Post is taking a fortnight (ten business days) to get a letter from Brisbane to Brisbane.
Consultations might be done over telephone or internet but then the doctor needs to send physical piece of paper for medical prescription or physical letter for medical referral to another health care provider (medical imaging, pathology, specialist, etc) and that letter needs to get to the patient in a timely manner. AP’s recorded message while you are on hold waiting to talk to someone, mentions postal services for medical purposes but they have changed their system so that letters take longer to arrive in the same metro area.
These can be done electronically…either faxed or emailed. One just needs to know which pharmacy or specialist to send it to.
I cared for an elderly lady with living in Brisbane and we would get her doctor to do this for us to save the referral/script being lost.
There still are many medical practitioners who refuse to use “unsafe/insecure” services.
Obviously the doctor writing a referral knows which specialist to send it to …
There are even special “medical communication” apps/networks such as Medical-Objects, but sadly these do not have reliable prompt delivery timeframes, despite their website claiming the following:
Medical-Objects Secure Messaging - a real-time point to point technology connecting over 78,500 health professionals, for secure communication and tracking of all clinical correspondence between General Practitioners, Allied Health, Specialists, Pathology, Radiology, Aged Care, Public and Private Hospitals. Medical-objects integrates with all major practice software vendors.
Posted Qld Glass House Mountains
AP ‘we deliver’, received Newcastle NSW Thursday 10th Oct, personal mail.
The gods of reliable mail delivery are alive and well.
Personally we think the local AP agency does a great job. 
Where to add this one, Fun with Auspost, or here. Here wins. Open government is not only unimportant to our government, but they actively beat down any who expose what is not going swimmingly well. Auspost claiming privacy from photos of labels? Looks like the photos are of parcels in yellow bags. He said they said at best, but disciplinary action? Our good (?) news if there is any, Auspost is (still) not under control of Toll holdings largest investor, at least not directly, yet. We usually follow the lead of the US for better or worse and look how well the USPS is going.
Could also have opened with “spoiler alert”? 
Is the key that away from the pressure points of the greatest mail and parcels volumes, local AP services are more resilient to peaks and troughs?
Our local postie covers a large footprint. He/she can’t be cut in half nor can the bike. We can only post at the box at the Post Office which is cleared daily, one letter or 100. The parcel service van seems to cope with daily deliveries, likely serving multiple needs.
Perhaps being where we are there is also more to be lost than gained. Upsetting a community that still worships the local paper print rag and paying bills cash over the counter has a downside.
Although future closures of all the smaller local Post Offices may come to pass. 
The Auspost CEO has been sprung spending $12,000 of taxpayer money on Cartier watches for staff awards. I can imagine the investigation will conclude ‘somebody needs to keep the mails on time, and Cartier watches are accurate’. . . Scotty is doing his bit to act outraged.
They don’t stand down Ministers from politics, they just move them temporarily to the back benches. Still polliies, still getting paid (just not quite as much) and still get all the pollie perks…big difference.
In any other business the initiative and expenditure would be well within the authority of the CEO. Especially if the specific goals were tied to other key objectives demanded by the shareholder. What the shareholder (Minister) asks in confidence of the Directors and how they follow through to execute that will might be of interest too.
Slight chance it will become more public knowledge. One is left to wonder. Perhaps the Minister was simply too busy at the time to be part of the presentations and has lost the invite.
It’s still not a good look given there are more significant issues with other aspects of AP service delivery.
I bet they weren’t posties! mid to upper management who won the awards for working out how to spin ‘we are open fewer hours and delivering less often’ to sound like ‘we are trying harder’.
Whatever happened to the boss calling someone in and giving them a genuine thanks - then repeating it over scones and cream in an office get together?? To me, when it’s genuine, that means a lot more than spending lots of money.
edit: I bet she knows exactly what time she was stood down
Not just upper management, but ‘Senior Management’. I know you are completely surprised 
Auspost is a commercial organization, but totally owned by the Fed Gov, but recieves no money from the Gov, but losses are covered by the taxpayer, but they have monopoly rights to certain services, but but but.
Why hasn’t this bloated thing been sold off by now?
