Another Dunedin day, another eight roadside postboxes get the axe.
A New Zealand Post spokeswoman said eight postboxes would be removed from Dunedin today.
The boxes are located at 2 Hocken St, Kenmure; 13 Kaikorai Valley Rd, Kaikorai; 71 Nairn St, Kaikorai; corner of Shetland and Forresbank Ave, Wakari; 4 Queens Dr, St Kilda; 48 Richardson St, St Kilda; 119 Prince Albert Rd, St Kilda; 67 Macandrew Rd, South Dunedin.
The final clearance of the eight boxes was yesterday.
The postbox at 39 Kenmure St, Belleknowes, initially signalled to be removed today, was taken away last week with 10 other Dunedin boxes.
NZ Post removed 21 post boxes from Dunedin last year.
Postal Workers Union Southern District president John Maynard said the latest wave of postbox removals undermined community access to the postal network.
The union was preparing a submission to the justice and electoral select committee’s inquiry into the conduct of the local authority elections.
The submission raised concerns at the removal of essential infrastructure for voter participation in a postal ballot.
"We are asking how the Electoral Commission can be confident of adequate facilities for postal voting when wave after wave of postboxes are being removed."
New Zealand Post had failed to respond to the union proposal for postboxes to be cleared by posties on their rounds to save the company money, he said.
The New Zealand Post spokeswoman said NZ Post disagreed the overall number of postboxes had an impact on voter turnout when it came to postal ballots.
"What we do believe is that the location of postboxes is much more important. This is why we are increasingly moving postboxes from suburban streets to busy areas that people go for their day-to-day activities, such as shopping areas and service stations."
NZ Post had not rejected the proposal for posties to clear boxes, she said, "as we are still working through the implications".
"In particular, whether it’s feasible for our posties and couriers to pick up mail as they go past postboxes. Given they only go past boxes every second day this isn’t as straightforward as you might think."
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Comments
What genius. Nothing like a self fulfilling death spiral for a business. Trade is dropping so make it harder for customers to do business with you. Leading of course to customers finding alternate ways to do that business and even less future business and on it goes.
I hope the boss of NZ post is having salary cuts as the business shrinks.
I have seen information that states NZ POST CEO salary package has gone from $830,000 (2010/2011) to $1,570,000 (2016) - so thats currently over $130,000 a month, or $30,000 a week, or over $6,000 a day (assuming a 5-day week. for 52 weeks).
The current CEO, Brian Roche is listed as being the CEO, since 2010 - who incidentally received a Knighthood in this New Years Honours List, for "Services to the State, and business"