SUBJECT: Proposed privatisation of Australia Post.

MICHELLE ROWLAND, SHADOW MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS: Good morning. It is great to be here at the Australia Post facility in Alexandria with our Labor Leader, Anthony Albanese, and Shane Murphy from the CEPU. And a very big thanks to all of the workers at Australia Post who have kept Australians going during the pandemic. They have delivered. They have been essential service workers. They have done an outstanding job. Today is an auspicious day in some respects. It is the one-year anniversary of this Government announcing its regulatory changes to Australia Post in a model designed, under the cover of COVID, to potentially cut one in four postie jobs and to cut services right across Australia. And we know now that it is actually far worse. That they commissioned a secret BCG report looking into the privatisation of Australia Post and looking at cutting thousands of jobs across Australia and closing post offices in areas in which post is an essential service. So today, we listened to the workers of Australia Post. We understand how dedicated they are to their task. It is just a pity that this Government under Scott Morrison is not delivering for them. And I will hand over to our Leader, Anthony Albanese.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Well, thanks very much, Michelle. And thank you as well to Shane Murphy and to the workers here at Alexandria who kept Australian safe during 2020. They are essential workers, and they should be respected. But their reward for making the sacrifices they did, continuing to deliver for Australians during the pandemic, is attacks on their working conditions and the proposed privatisation of Australia Post. What we know is that there have been significant cutbacks away from the delivery of mail. We know that those regulations have been about making cost savings. And we know that there's also changes being proposed from July 1, for example, to not deliver fresh food. We know that Australia Post is an essential service, not just for letters, but also for the delivery of parcels. And what we need is a Government that recognises this essential service as an asset for all of us. This Government are led by Scott Morrison, who we know couldn't deliver appropriate aged care and can't deliver a vaccine. And we know now that he doesn't want to deliver the mail either. The fact is that this is an essential service. The fact that Christine Holgate's evidence before the Senate committee exposed the fact that a secret report was commissioned by Boston, by the Australia Post board, that's dominated by former Liberal Party hacks and failed Liberal Party would-be politicians. The fact is that report was about privatising sections of Australia Post, and eventually, of course, all of it. Because if you privatised all the most profitable bits, that's just setting it up for a removal of the public sector. Australia Post is an essential service. And today I've given this commitment to the workers here, that Labor stands with you. Labor stands with you, on your side, when it comes to delivering services to Australians and when it comes to protecting your working conditions. The idea that one of the things that the regulations have done is place incredible burden on people being asked to work longer hours, to carry more around, to really carry the burden. And these workers work hard. They deserve our respect, and they deserve our thanks. And Labor will be standing with them in the period ahead. Thank you.

ENDS