Australia Post has lodged a draft notification with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), seeking an increase in the Basic Postage Rate (BPR) from 70 cents to $1 to better reflect the cost of the regulated letters service.
This follows an announcement in March that Australia Post would seek to lift the BPR to $1 to apply to a new Regular letters service for consumer mail.
Consumers will be supported, with the concession stamp price frozen at 60 cents for 5.7 million concession cardholders and the price of a Season Greeting stamp frozen, for all Australians, at 65 cents. Together, Concession and Season Greeting mail accounts for almost half of all mail sent by consumers.
Mail volume – of which 97 per cent comes from business and government - continues to decline and the letters service has accumulated losses of more than $1 billion over the past seven years. While the planned BPR increase and service changes will reduce the losses, they will not return stamped mail to profit.
The changes will keep post offices open – including Australia Post's vital regional and rural network - keep posties delivering five days a week and ensure Australians everywhere can still access a world-class delivery service.
Business and government customers will continue to receive volume incentives at the same level as they do now, relative to the full rate.
These changes are expected to be implemented in January 2016
Australia Post
https://auspost.com.au
