Nine days for magazines to travel from Melbourne to Sydney – is this the future of Australia Post’s two-tier system for publication post?
How many days does it take for a magazine to be delivered under the new PrintPost regular delivery service? Well, for the September issue of Print21 it can take more than seven working days to travel between the two capital cities.
Since the monopoly mail carrier introduced a two-tiered delivery for publications in June it has given new meaning to the term ‘snail mail.’ Print21 magazine was lodged in Melbourne on Wednesday, 17 September under the ‘regular’ service. Many Sydney subscribers didn’t receive their copy until Thursday 24 September, a full six working days later. Many are still waiting.
Similarly for subscribers in Western Australia and Queensland where it has taken more than seven working days for the magazine to be delivered.
These subscribers are victims of an undeclared postage hike from Australia Post that sees publishers bilked for a so-called Priority Service that merely continues the previous PrintPost system. Otherwise, for publishers that continue the pay the original pricing, it’s welcome to super snail mail.
PrintPost is an Australia Post service to the publishing and marketing, and thereby the printing and mailing industries, for a lower cost delivery. It specifically helps large mail users.
The ‘new’ Priority service now costs 7% more than the previous Print Post system. It claims to deliver within and between metropolitan areas of capital cities within four days. This is the same service level of the old Print Post.
The additional Regular service, at the previous price point plus 2%, adds two additional business days on top of the Priority timetable. However, for at least Print21, it adds a lot more than two days going from Melbourne to Sydney.
Print Post has proved a veritable cash cow for Australia Post with five price increases over four years. In 2012 it rose by 3.1%, in 2012 it went up 3% and by 2.7% in 2013 – an overall increase of around 9%. Not content with that this year it introduced the two-tier service, slugging publishers with an effective 7% increase in order to continue getting the same service.
The fear is that the so-called regular service will over time be so degraded that no one will be able to depend on it and all Print Post mail will be forced to use the higher cost Priority service. This comes at a time when print communication is under increasing threat from digital modes.
A response from Australia Post explains it thus… We introduced an additional speed of service called Print Post Regular and what is now the existing service was renamed to Print Post Priority. Priority has next business day delivery for the same metro-metro, and Regular is delivered one to two days longer than Priority.
Despite its monopoly position Australia Post has no requirement to justify any price rises for products other ‘ordinary letters’ since ACCC oversight was removed in 2011. In a submission to the Competition Policy Review, Printing Industries was highly critical of Australia Post’s conduct and attitude to the printing, publishing and mailing industries.
Prior to the removal of the referral requirement to the ACCC, Australia Post consulted with key stakeholders in the consideration of proposed price increases. Printing Industries found that this consultation was constructive and often led to changes in the position of Australia Post on a particular matter. However, consultation on price increases has been minimal since the 2011 decision.
The behaviour of AP since 2011 indicates the absence of ACCC scrutiny has not promoted efficient pricing and protected consumers in relation to other reserved mail services. It remains unclear what the ACCC can do to address this.
Printing Industries believes AP is deliberately misrepresenting the demise in demand for mail services and products and in so doing is denying many Australians access to their preferred means of communication.
Print21 would like to apologise to any subscribers still waiting delivery of the September issue. We would appreciate if you can let us know when it eventually lands in your mailbox. Meanwhile you can read it here in digital form … but it’s better as a printed magazine.