Australia Post and the snail mail evolution

What happened to next-day letter delivery?

Australia Post needs to be dependable and deliver letters daily and swiftly. Business and citizens must be able to depend on it.

Indeed, Australia Post needs to get back to providing quality next-day letter delivery services, which sadly have been erratic and unreliable for a good decade since a CEO expressed the wish to get out of letter deliveries all together.

Letter delivery provides communication security for a nation should other communications break down – think of the Optus failure – and the government needs to realise Australia Post is a public service.

Indeed, it needs to get Australia Post back to behaving like a good public servant – seen and not heard, doing its job well. The government and opposition need to jointly commit to a regular, swift service.

John Dobinson, Herston, Qld

It’s a public service we still need

Your editorial and articles regarding the forthcoming changes to Australia Post appeal to the same tired rhetoric commonly used to traduce the role of any public service. Instead of questioning the curious C-suite culture at AusPost, such as awarding huge bonuses or the vast number of non-executive staff earning more than $235,000 a year, it must be the letters business and consumers that are to blame.

In the light of the recent Optus fiasco and banking outages, and earlier data theft at Vanguard, the security of the postal service and pen and paper was underscored.
In a modern Australian economy that faces a loneliness and mental health epidemic, it is not corporate welfare to fund a public service like daily letters delivery.

Anders Ross, Heidelberg, Vic

Climate chaos must be curbed at source

At COP26 (2021) there was an agreement to “phase out” coal, until this was watered down at the last minute: parties could only agree to the term “phase down”, an act which brought the COP26 president to tears. COP27 was unable to advance the position.

Now COP28 president Sultan al-Jaber (head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company) welcomes “the prospect of a debate on whether they should try and agree a phase-down or phase-out of coal, oil and gas” (“COP28 host vows to prove critics wrong”).

Climate/economics researchers Fergus Green and Harro van Asselt wrote after the failure of COP27 to agree on the phase-out: the “outcome is a timely reminder that curbing the growth in fossil fuels will not come about through consensus-oriented negotiations among governments that include those corrupted by the fossil fuel industry. It will require social movements pressuring leaders to legislate a managed phase-out of fossil fuels, while ensuring a just transition for affected workers and communities.”

COP28 began with an $85 billion commitment of new funding from rich countries “to help climate chaos in poorer ones”, but will there be a commitment to urgently stop the cause of that chaos?

Fiona Colin, Malvern East, Vic

Capacity Investment Scheme is smart policy

Matthew Warren’s critique of the Capacity Investment Scheme, while doing well to highlight the tension of the energy transition (reduce emissions quickly through more renewables while managing power pricing shocks and affordability for us as consumers), goes on to misconstrue the value of the scheme.

No one ever said the energy transition would be easy, nor that it would come for free. But as far as energy policy goes, the CIS is the smartest we’ve had for some time: it brings in the public dollar to underwrite the downside risk of lower wholesale power prices to crowd in long-term investors who might otherwise hold back – more insurance than subsidy.

And to claim it came out of nowhere is plain wrong: this was in the works earlier this year, building on the successful NSW Long-Term Energy Service Agreements model.

Paul Curnow, Lewisham, NSW

Ceasefire would be a win for Hamas

Thomas Friedman’s “Israel should call for permanent ceasefire” presents an argument that may seem logical at first glance, but it has flaws. Leaving Hamas in power in Gaza just means there will be another war once Hamas feels ready. Its leader, Yahya Sinwar, recently said October 7 was just a dress rehearsal, while a member of its political bureau, Ghazi Hamad, said it would attack Israel again and again until Israel is destroyed.

It would widely be seen as a victory for Hamas that it killed and kidnapped so many Israelis, yet survived, weakening Israel’s deterrence.

Gazans would be subjected to Hamas continuing to steal aid and building materials, its reconstruction would be slowed, and Israel would be blamed, not Hamas, as Friedman says, just as Israel was always blamed for conditions in Gaza before October 7.

Israel can never be secure with Hamas controlling Gaza.

George Greenberg, Malvern, Vic

STC gesture: Art is not just entertainment

For over 65 years I have been subscriber, donor and patron of performing arts organisations in Boston, New York and Sydney. I have witnessed performances that were booed and where audiences left in protest. It never occurred to me to withdraw my support for these arts organisations. Why, I ask myself.

I attend these performances to be enlightened and challenged, not just to be entertained. I expect that the plays and performances will provide me with a new or enhanced insight, or spark an idea that I had never considered before, especially as it relates to current social issues.

I expect that some performances will challenge the innate prejudices that we all have regarding the rights of others. I may not agree with what I hear or see from the performers, but I applaud their willingness to provide me with new insights and defend their bravery in presenting their perspective.

The recent gesture on the stage of a Sydney Theatre Company production was unremarkable, since we have seen such gestures in football stadiums, the Oscar awards and the Olympics to a far wider audience. It involved a select number of actors who felt compelled to indicate their empathy for Palestinian victims of the war in Gaza. It is interesting to speculate what the reaction would have been if the actors wrapped themselves in the Israeli flag as well as keffiyeh scarves.

I can only hope that my fellow theatre goers and those that took umbrage over the acts of a few socially concerned actors will reflect on the reason they attend performing arts productions. The STC and other organisations will weather the loss of several subscribers and donors, but those individuals will also suffer the loss of what the theatre gives to them.

Ronald Lee Gaudreau, Surry Hills, NSW

Please clarify philanthropy rules for schools

The Productivity Commission’s suggested reforms to philanthropy are largely to be praised (“Rules around charitable giving need to be overhauled”). But what is and isn’t fundable in the education sector is unclear and needs refinement.

Your editorial, “Clare must save Labor’s Gonski school revolution”, says: “Remedial action to help [disadvantaged] students make up lost ground during the pandemic is called for.”

The Smith Family pioneered post-pandemic catch-up learning programs. The Grattan Institute’s work helped shape Victoria and NSW’s $1.5 billion response to catch-up learning. In both instances this was work funded by philanthropy.

The Productivity Commission needs to be careful not to preclude innovative philanthropic funding from education.

Sean Barrett, Neutral Bay, NSW