To the bureaucrats, sincerely, Australia.

I see those idiots we lovingly, (or perhaps laughingly!) call ‘bureaucrats’ have been at it again!

Now they’re targeting country Post Office contractors, putting many of them out of business in order to “rationalise” the postal service, whatever that is supposed to mean, with little or no thought for the community being served! The existing contractors are people who have usually lived in their area for many years, know when Mrs. Smith is away on holiday, or old George, who lives down by the river is going into hospital. They know when the school bus should arrive and can report a failure to do so, and they can help older members of the community to fill in some of the multitude of forms that are now required for almost anything. Another prime example of ‘bureaucratese’.

Not only that, but most of these good people also run, as part of their service, in the same premises, the general store, the news agency and sometimes the Tatts outlet as well. But they rely on the Post Office side to hold everything together, it is the mainstay, the bulwark.

A prime example is the Post Office/General Store in Toora, Gippsland. The bureaucrats have decided it must have its private postal contract withdrawn, to be handed over to one of the immense delivery contractors who are gradually gaining a monopoly throughout the country as a result. Particularly in rural areas like Toora. Where will the personal touch go then?

The present operative is reported as saying that without the postal contract, she is unable to run the general side of the store at a profit so it will all have to close, along with the postal service! This of course, means the loss not only of the only general store the little town possesses, but also several jobs associated with it. Employees in the store itself and sub contracted mail deliverers, and it goes beyond that too. There is only one bank in the town, a Bendigo ‘Community’ bank, part owned, and run by the local people themselves, which may also have to close.

The bank’s present sources of income is mainly from, 1. The local townspeople, 2. The general store/post office and 3. Farmers in the surrounding area. Without this service there will be little incentive for these people to stay and shop in the town, they will be inclined to travel to Foster or Yarram, both of which have full postal facilities and good shopping and a Bendigo Bank. So they might just as well do their banking there, rather than make a special stop in Toora before commencing their outing!

So for the sake of a decision made by some stupid bureaucrat, based more, it seems to me, on proving the need for his own job, rather than providing any real improvement in the community, another small town may die. Our public servants (that’s a laugh too!) seem to have completely lost the concept of being there to provide the services the community needs. They are only concerned with finding what appears to be the most economical way to do anything, without any consideration for how their decisions may affect other activities allied with their point of interest!

They conveniently forget that people come first, economics second. Quality of life is vastly more important than saving a ‘buck’, and I am concerned that this is exactly what is happening in the world of parcels and letters. This is at the very least a great shame and if things turn out as they could, we may even have a disaster on our hands, along the lines of George Orwell’s ‘1984’. Beware!