Brown paper packages tied up with strings, these are among Australians’ favourite things.
The delivery of a record 283 million parcels in the last half of 2025, including a bumper 111 million over the Christmas season, helped Australia Post record a modest profit as its letters business steeply declined.
But regional and rural post office licensees and consumers are missing out on their own special delivery, as the national postal service actively maintains its dominance, a Senate inquiry has been told.
Under Australia Post’s current contracts, independently-owned post offices cannot provide parcel collection and return services for competitors, according to the Australian Parcels Industry Forum.
A submission from the forum, which represents FedEx and Team Global Express, said attempts to work with licensees have been met with resistance from Australia Post and requests to communicate through lawyers.
Australia Post holds 70 per cent of the national e-commerce parcels market, along with at least 95 per cent in regional areas.
“When you have a 95 per cent market share player … there’s not a lot of incentive for service improvement there,” forum executive member Jon Bell told the inquiry in Canberra on Wednesday.
“We have a large number of retailers telling us they could sell a lot more product to regional Australians if only they had a choice of parcel delivery.
“We’ve even had retailers tell us they block certain postcodes on their website from delivery because it’s just too much hassle, too slow, or too expensive to use current services.”
For example, people in Queensland’s Darling Downs region have 46 package collection points at community post offices, the forum’s submission said.
But there are only 18 pick-up locations if a retailer uses a different carrier, with a potential 165km round-trip to the closest depot.
Alternative carriers have long lobbied Australia Post to open up its network, including Sendle before its abrupt collapse in January.
Economic modelling showed if Australia Post allowed competitors access to post offices, as is common around the world, it would generate $1.5 billion over 10 years, the forum’s submission said.
That figure would include new national revenue, about 1000 regional jobs and would enable Australia Post to expand its growing parcels market.
Competitors could fulfil “final mile” deliveries, bringing overall postage costs down, Conference of Asia Pacific Express Carriers executive Tom Harden told the inquiry.
“If there’s a lower cost for the final mile, everyone gets a little bit cheaper, and we get a little bit faster,” Mr Harden said.
“We get better service, businesses can now expand into those networks … there’s more jobs, and all the natural economic things start flowing from that.”
Australia Post’s submission said its mandated function was to supply national postal services.
But it also had to meet shareholders’ expectations, creating tension as its letters business and demand for other traditional services declined.
Australian Associated Press is the beating heart of Australian news. AAP is Australia’s only independent national newswire and has been delivering accurate, reliable and fast news content to the media industry, government and corporate sector for 85 years. We keep Australia informed.
