Australia Post’s boss has denied misleading a government committee by withholding plans to close scores of post offices, arguing they were in an “embryonic” stage.
In a heated hearing, chief executive Paul Graham said the leaked plan was a framework and wasn’t activated when he gave evidence to a hearing in May, and remains unactivated.
“I could talk about a hundred things that are in embryonic stages or ideas … that aren’t formal,” he told the Senate committee in Canberra on Wednesday.
The business case to “re-imagine” the post office network and licence arrangements was leaked in June, outlining potential plans to reshape Australia Post’s retail network, including shutting up to 36 metropolitan outlets in NSW and Victoria.
It also reportedly discussed pushing regional operators to give up their perpetual licenses as part of a “format conversions strategy”.
This often involves cutting services, relocating them to other businesses, or reducing outlets to parcel agencies or lockers.
The head of the government-owned letters and parcels business said his goal was to always be open and transparent, adding there’s no program currently in place to close down post offices.
“I was asked the question: Was there an active program?” Mr Graham said about his comments in May.
“And in my understanding of what an active program is, my answer was correct: there was no active program.”
Under parliamentary privilege, Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson, who uncovered the document, accused Mr Graham of misleading the upper house.
“I didn’t use the words ‘active program’; you did, Mr Graham,” she told him.
“You deliberately deceived our committee by using those sorts of tricky words.”
Post office licensees were largely kept in the dark about the plans and frozen out of consultation, their peak body said.
“We’ve got a leadership team that is focused on shrinking the network to meet the current business, rather than growing the business to fill this network,” Licensed Post Office Group chair Scott Etherington told the committee.
Post office closures were a death knell for small communities and businesses, as was the slow erosion of their services, he said.
“It’s absolutely critical for the economic survival and for the people who live in those communities that they have a full-service post office in that community,” Mr Etherington said.
He also called out Australia Post’s “voluntary” payment schemes, which provide support to struggling licensees who sign a fixed-term agreement and give up their permanent licenses.
“When I walk up to a man in the desert dying of thirst with a glass of water and I say, ‘It’s completely up to you whether you choose to take this glass of water,’ most people would say that’s not really a voluntary choice,” he said.
“And that’s exactly where we are.”
The licensee group wants a review of the financial viability of a services-led post office model and an immediate pause of the “reimagined” post office program.
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