Article CRNI

Competition and Regulation in

Network Industries
The long-term performance 2018, Vol. 19(3-4) 137–158
ª The Author(s) 2019
of a utility: The case Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1783591719829043
of the Australian Post Office journals.sagepub.com/home/crn

Malcolm Abbott
Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

Abstract
Recent Internet-induced declines in mail volumes have put at risk the profitability of Australia’s
most enduring government business enterprise, Australia Post. The post office after its reform in
the 1970s and 1980s was a strongly performing enterprise. This article observes the long-term
performance of the industry since 1901. In particular, the growth in demand, productivity growth,
as well as prices, and profits are presented over the longer term.

Keywords
Australia, postal services, corporatization, productivity

Introduction
In recent years, a decline in the volume of mail, and consequently the profitability of Australia
Post, Australia’s government-owned mail carrier, has brought into question the future of this
government business enterprise. This decline in mail volume is in line with international trends,
as physical post is increasingly being replaced by electronic forms of communication (Jagg, 2014,
p. 277). The post office is Australia’s oldest government business enterprise, its predecessors being
originally founded in the early nineteenth century and has survived in government ownership long
after many others in Australia (like telecommunications, airlines, banks, and electricity generation)
have been privatized. This has been because of a range of factors, but with its recent decline in mail
volumes, government ownership is once again being questioned.
The Australian Post Office was founded in 1901 from the merger of the post offices of the six
colonies that took part in the Australian federation.1 These were incorporated into the Australian

1. New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania.

Corresponding author:
Malcolm Abbott, Faculty of Business and Law, Swinburne University of Technology, John Street, Hawthorn, VIC 3122, Australia.
E-mail: mabbott@swin.edu.au
138 Competition and Regulation in Network Industries 19(3-4)

Government’s Postmaster-General’s Department (the Department), which was responsible for the
operation of Australia’s postal services and telephone and telegraph networks up until 1975. In that
year, the Australian Postal Commission (from 1989 known as Australia Post) and Telecom
Australia (later known as Telstra) were formed. These two organizations initially remained in
government ownership, although Telstra was later sold.
Over its history, the long government operation of the postal network in Australia has meant
that its performance at times has come under the scrutiny of policy reformers. This scrutiny was
embodied in several reports by external investigators beginning with the first by a Royal Com-
mission as early as 1910 (see list of investigations and their main findings in Table 1). The purpose
of this article, therefore, is to analyze the long-run performance of the post office in Australia since
1901. More specifically, the focus is on postal services demand growth, productivity change, letter
prices, and profits, in order to determine in which periods it performed the strongest economically
and identify what factors were important. In the first section, a general background on the nature of
government business enterprises in Australia is given. This is followed by sections on the origins of
the post office, the Postmaster-General’s Department, reform of the post office from 1975, and the
economic performance of the post office. In the last section, some conclusions are made.

Post and government business enterprises in Australia

The post office in Australia is regarded as a government business enterprise in that it is an agency
that covers most of its expenses with the sale of products. This makes it different to other
government organizations that provide such things as healthcare, education, social welfare, and
so on. Government business enterprises generally try to at least break even (although often they are
required to provide the government with a rate of return; as were Australia Post and Telecom
Australia after 1975). Australia has a long tradition of managing key sectors of the economy
through government business enterprises, although their structural organization has taken a variety
of forms (Butlin, Barnard, & Pincus, 1982: Part 4). Originally, most government business enter-
prises were embodied in government departments, headed by a Minister that sat in parliament
(state or national), employed staff according to general public service rules (governed by a public
service board) and which usually carried out industry regulatory and policy formulation functions
as well. Since the 1970s, following international trends (Box, 1999; Brown, Rayan, & Parker,
2000), many were ‘‘corporatized’’ in that they were reformed as quasi-autonomous commissions or
separate corporate entities (Domberger, 1992; Teo, 2000). The United States’ Post Reorganization
Act 1970 and the United Kingdom’s Post Office Act 1969 were important influences on this process
(Abbott, 2013).
These reforms usually aimed to identify clearly the goals of an enterprise and developed
incentives for management to achieve them. This has generally meant forming them as legal
entities, having a board of control, with a CEO responsible to that board, along with directly
employed staff (i.e. separate from public service rules), given explicit financial targets and reg-
ulatory functions taken from them. The creation of the postal and telecommunications commis-
sions in Australia in 1975 went a fair way toward what is generally referred to as corporatization
(Abbott, 2000).
Governments have historically owned or regulated most network industries in Australia and in
many other countries (Millward, 2005, 2011, 2012; Jaag, 2014). In Australia, since the mid-1980s,
competition has been introduced into a wide range of network industries including
Abbott 139

Table 1. Government investigations into Australian postal services, from 1908 to 2018.

Date Report Recommendations

1908–1910 Australia, Royal Commission on Postal Service be placed under a board, staff removed
Services, Report of Royal Commission on Postal from public service jurisdiction. Services
Services. should be run to cover overall costs.
1915 Robert McCAnderson, Report on the Business Department as a whole should cover costs,
Management of the Postmaster-General’s general manager should be appointed, and
Department of the Commonwealth of Australia staff should be removed from public service
jurisdiction.
1919 Australia, Royal Commission Appointed to Service be placed under a board, staff removed
Consider and Report upon the Public from public service jurisdiction. Services
Expenditure of the Commonwealth with a should be run to cover overall costs.
View to Effecting Economies, First Progress
Report.
1921 Federal Economy Commission, Final Report of Service be placed under a board, staff removed
the Royal Commission Appointed to Consider from public service jurisdiction. Services
and Report upon Public Expenditure of the should be run to cover overall costs.
Commonwealth of Australia with a View to
Effecting Economies: Together with Statements
by the Government and the Minister for Defence
1954 Australia, parliament, Joint Committee of Public
Accounts, Twelfth Report: Postmaster-General’s
Department, Parliamentary Paper No. 14.
1954–1955 Nineteenth Report: Treasury Minutes and
Comments of Postmaster-General’s Department
on the Twelfth Report, etc. No. 97.
1959–1960 Australia, Parliament, Ad Hoc Committee of Surplus should be generated on operations to
Enquiry into the Commercial Accounts of meet interest and make a return to the
the Post Office: Summary of Conclusions government on capital invested.
and Recommendations. Report of the
Majority, Report of the Minority.
1974 Australian Post Office Commission of Enquiry, Services be placed under separate postal and
Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the telecommunications boards, staff removed
Australian Post Office (Vernon Report) from public service jurisdiction.
1982 Parliament, Committee of Inquiry into the Monopoly should be maintained, and post
Monopoly Position of the Australian Postal should be allowed to move into competitive
Commission, Report of the Committee of Inquiry areas such as electronic mail and courier
into the Monopoly Position of the Australian Postal services.
Commission (Bradley Report).
1992 Industry Commission, Mail, Courier and Parcel Domestic monopoly be maintained, but
Services. international mail be competitive.
1996 Australia, Parliament, House of Only a slight reduction in monopoly coverage
Representatives, Standing Committee on was warranted.
Communications, Transport and
Microeconomic Reform, Keeping Rural
Australia Posted: an Inquiry into Australia Post:
Rural and Regional Letter Delivery Services.
1998 National Competition Council, Review of the Opening up of competition for business and
Australian Postal Corporation Act. inward international mail.
140 Competition and Regulation in Network Industries 19(3-4)

telecommunications, natural gas, and electricity.2 Postal services share a common network struc-
ture with these industries but are different in some ways. As Panzer states:

Like telecommunications, electric power and most transportation, postal services is a network industry.
While postal service does not exhibit the sunk costs associated with those industries, its network
structure has important implications for the analysis of efficient industry structure in the market for
postal services. (Panzar, 1994, p. 91)

This difference in the type of network associated with postal services means that it is a con-
troversial point whether any natural monopoly characteristics exist in it. The empirical economic
literature on postal services tends to regard the stages before final delivery—in particular sorting
and transportation—as functions where economies of scale are not significant (see for instance,
Bradley & Colvin, 1995; Crew & Kleindorf, 1991, 1992; Owen & Willig, 1983; Panzar, 1991a,b,
1994; Rogerson & Takin, 1993; Sidak & Spulber, 1996).3 The only part of postal services where
economies of scale are said to be significant are collection and local delivery (Sidak & Spulber,
1996, pp. 40–41). Some have argued, however, that efficient competition at this stage might still be
achieved by combining different deliveries; that is, by taking advantage of economies of scope in
delivery (Bishop, Caffarra, Kuhn, & Whish, 1998). In recent times, this argument has been con-
siderably weakened as the post network is increasingly being by-passed by electronic forms of
communication. This process has been a long one, really dating back to the introduction of and
expansion of telephone use (and later fax machines), but being extended more decisively by the use
of the Internet.
If it is possible to have competition in postal markets, it begs the question of why the industry
has seen the longest period of government ownership. The main argument for government mono-
poly ownership of post is the ‘‘universal service’’ argument that governments should ensure that
rural and regional customers in rural receive the same service urban ones do. This means sub-
sidizing remoter routes with the excess revenue derived from more relatively dense urban routes.
There is, therefore, a clear link between legal monopoly powers, the universal service, and the
uniform rate. These arguments have been strong enough in the past to keep the Australian Gov-
ernment operating the post as a government business enterprise, with legal monopoly over some
services (Butlin et al., 1982, pp. 237–238).
In the absence of competitive pressures, achieving a high level of efficiency has long been a
problem for the postal service and other Australian government business enterprises. The eco-
nomic performance of government business enterprises in Australia, historically, was not partic-
ularly impressive, in that they tended to be unresponsive to consumer demands, relatively
inefficient, and suffered from having to achieve a range of (often contradictory) objectives (Foster,
1992; Stiglitz, 1989). Overall Australian government business enterprises generated low rates of
return, operated at low levels of productivity, and were over staffed, while demanding significant
amounts of government-funded investments (Butlin et al., 1982, Part 4; Industry Commission,
1990). In the 1960s and 1970s, for instance, the telecommunications section of the Postmaster-
General’s Department was especially demanding of government funds to finance telecommunica-
tions expansion and the introduction of new technologies (Moyal, 1984, p. 362). In addition, the

2. At this time, competition was also introduced into Australian postal industry for parcel and courier services but not for
standard letters.
3. Some have argued that even in local delivery economies of scale are limited.
Abbott 141

Department was seen by many as operating at below its potential in terms of efficiency and was an
organization that embodied substantial cross-subsidization of services in its pricing. Cross-
subsidization did attract the interest of public sector unions and country and regional interests,
which helps to explain why the postal service has been retained in government ownership for so
long (Albon, 1985, p. 31, 51).4
Governments in Australia governments have long been aware of the problems of government
enterprises, one of the earliest measures to depoliticize and make more efficient the operation of a
government enterprise occurring as early as the 1880s. This involved the creation of a Railways
Commission with a board of direction and general manager to take over the operation of the
Railways Department of the Colony of Victoria. By the early 1970s, the Australian Government
operated a number of quasi-autonomous, business enterprise commissions, which functioned under
boards of control.5 More common, however, were government departments that operated business
enterprises such as the Department of Transport, which operated the country’s major airports and
the Commonwealth Railways up until the 1970s. Despite the early attempts to raise efficiency
levels of government business enterprises, it was only in the 1970s and 1980s that a persistent
attempt was made to improve their economic performance. The starting point for this process was
with the country’s largest enterprise: the Postmaster-General’s Department, a body whose oper-
ations had attracted periodic attention from policy reformers.

The origins of the Australian Post Office

The Australian postal service was first established during the nineteenth century, when each of the
six Australian colonies established their own postal service, generally on the British model.
Government dispatches were at first the main form of correspondence, delivered by constables
who were permitted to carry private correspondence as well. In 1809, Lieutenant Governor Pater-
son of the Colony of New South Wales issued an order establishing a central office for the
collection of mails under an appointed official, Isaac Nicholas (Burke, 2009, Chapter 1). In
1825, the New South Wales Legislative Assembly went further when it passed an Act regulating
postal services, which led to the establishment of a general system of post offices and mail
deliveries throughout New South Wales. The Postal Act 1825 allowed the Governor of New South
Wales to fix postage rates and appoint postmasters outside of the capital, Sydney, enabling the first
organized postal service. The other Australian colonies at first generally had New South Wales
post offices, but when they were established as separate colonial jurisdictions established their own
postal organizations, appointed postmasters and passed similar acts establishing uniform rates of
postage (see Table 2) (Australia Post, 1984, p. 1). In each case, monopoly provisions were created,
similar to those arrangements used in Britain.
In Britain, the postal system had operated as a government monopoly since the late sixteenth
century. Considerations of state security and the possibility of Crown revenues had moved the
British system to that of a government monopoly. Reform of the British postal system in 1837, on
the basis of the proposals of Rowland Hill, introduced a uniform postage rate for letters irrespective

4. These sorts of political pressures have also been important in countries like the United States; Panzer Reconciling.
5. These included the Overseas Telecommunications Commission, the Australian Coastal Shipping Commission (Aus-
tralian National Line), and the Australian National Airways Commission (TAA). The Australian Government also
operated a few corporatized entities (the Commonwealth Banking Corporation, the Reserve Bank of Australia, and
QANTAS Airways Limited).
142 Competition and Regulation in Network Industries 19(3-4)

Table 2. Nineteenth-century postal administrations in Australia.

First
Jurisdiction postmaster Agency

New South Wales 1803 Post Office Department 1825; Postmaster-General’s Department 1865
Victoria 1837 Postmaster-General’s Department 1851
Queensland 1830 Post and Telegraph Department 1860
South Australia 1837 Post Office Department 1847; Post and Telegraph Department 1866
Tasmania 1812 Post Office Department 1828; Post and Telegraph Department 1894
Western Australia 1829 Postmaster-General 1847; Post and Telegraph Department 1872

Source: National Australian Archives. Hunter (2000).

of the place of posting and place of delivery. Hill considered it more efficient to have a uniform
price, a view expressed by government investigations in Australia through to the last decades of the
twentieth century. An Australian Government investigation in 1982, for instance, stated that prior
to the Rowland Hill reforms:

there were intricate charging scales and these tended to inflate operating costs because of the number of
officials needed to apply those charges. (Australia, Parliament, Committee of Inquiry into the Mono-
poly Position of the Australian Postal Commission, 1982, p. 38)

Although standard prices were not necessarily introduced in each colony prepayment, stamps
were introduced in the 1850s and generally each colony ended up with either a universal rate or
single rates for city and country post (Hunter, 2000, pp. 40–41).
Postal services grew in volume throughout the nineteenth century in the Australian colonies,
encouraged by the improvements in delivery times through the carriage of mail by railway and
steamships, and a number of important international milestones were reached such as the estab-
lishment of a monthly steamship sea mail to the United Kingdom in 1856, and the joining of the
colonies as joint member of the Universal Postal Union in 1891 (Australia Post, 1984, p. 1). Each
colonial postal administration differed in many respects; however, the heads of each met annually
from 1890 to ensure cooperation between them (Hunter, 2000, p. 62).
While the government in each colony held a monopoly on the collection and delivery of mail,
carriage was often entrusted to private contractors such as coastal shipping lines and coach com-
panies like Cobb and Co., both in Britain and in the Australian colonies (Burke, 2009, p. 51). The
post offices became the central piece of the colonial communication system in Australia and
comprised a large part of the government bureaucracy in Australia. From the 1870s onwards, they
also each held a monopoly of the telegraph service (in some cases, this not occurring until the
1890s; see Table 2) and from the 1890s of telephone services. Telephone services came a little later
than telegraph, with the earliest telephone exchanges in Australia dating back to 1880 (Melbourne).
At that time, all phone calls were manually switched by human operators and the first automatic
exchange opened in 1912, featuring electromechanical switching equipment. Cross-bar systems
started appearing in 1960 and electronic switching was introduced in the late 1970s (Moyal, 1984,
p. 226). The control of post, telegraph, and telephone services, therefore, followed the British
model of containing them within a single government department. This was the approach of the six
Australian colonies before federation and continued in a single organization after 1901.
Abbott 143

The economic performance of the Postmaster-General’s Department

With federation in 1901, postal and telegraphic services came under the jurisdiction of the new
Australian Government. Section 69 of the Australian Constitution, which provides for the transfer
of certain public services, includes that of posts, telegraphs, and telephones of each state to the
Australian Government.6 The Posts and Telegraph Act 1901 established the Australian Postmas-
ter-General’s Department under the direction of a minister and under Section 98 of the Act was
granted reserved services protection to carry all letters weighing up to 16 ounces (450 g).7 The
Postmaster-General’s Department was responsible for the control and operation of postal, tele-
graphic, and telephone services throughout Australia and was later also responsible for radio
broadcast and television licensing and a range of other functions.8
A Postmaster-General as its Ministerial Head and a Permanent Head (the Secretary) were
appointed along with Deputy-Postmaster-Generals in each of the six states.9 A small Central
Executive was established but with no structured organization and no clear financial and admin-
istrative arrangements. The Executive dictated matters of policy to each state but had no machinery
to ensure its orders were carried out.10 No provisions were made in the Post and Telegraph Act to
alter the states’ internal organizations and no action was taken at this stage to define functions or
create a uniform organization.
In 1901, when the Australian Postmaster-General’s Department was formed, the delivery of
letters and the telegraph system were important means of communications. The Department was
one of the largest business enterprises in the country at that time and made up the bulk of people
employed within the Australian public service. Over time this importance to communications was
reduced by telephone, radio, and television; however, the Department still remained one of Aus-
tralia’s largest business enterprises.
Despite the merger of the various state post offices, the new Department attracted a fair degree
of criticism and uniform rates of postal charges across the nation were, not established until 1911,
and the first stamps printed and sold in 1913.11 Because of the financial terms of the Constitution,
which dispersed much of the Australian Government’s revenue to the states in the decade to 1911,
and there was little left to invest in expansion of the services of the Postmaster-General’s Depart-
ment. A Bill to raise loan finance had been introduced to the Australian Parliament in 1902 but had
lapsed after considerable opposition arose to it.12 The disorganized nature of the new organization
meant that in the 1900s the Department was generating an operating loss of around £400,000 per
annum (Australia, Royal Commission, 1910, p. 197).
Despite the losses, mail growth in the decade of the 1900s was strong (a yearly average of 6%;
Table 4 and Figure 1), and growth in this volume continued into the 1910s and 1920s. This led to
the employment of many additional temporary employees, which inhibited efficiency growth and

6. The state post offices were transferred on March 1, 1901, by proclamation under section 69 of the Constitution.
7. Post and Telegraph Act No 12 of 1901, Section 98(3a).
8. The Wireless Telegraphy Act 1905 gave the Postmaster-General responsibility for wireless messaging, and in 1923 was
made responsible for the granting of licenses of radio stations.
9. Post and Telegraph Act No. 12 1901, Sections 5, 6, 7.
10. Australia, Postmaster-General’s Department, Central Administration 1901.
11. Prior to 1911 town letters were 1d and country letters 2d in New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and Western
Australia and in Victoria all letters were 1d, and in South Australia they were 2d; The Postal Rates Act No. 24 of 1910
established uniform rates across Australia.
12. Australia, Parliament, House of Representatives, Hansard, June 10, 1902, p. 13431.
144 Competition and Regulation in Network Industries 19(3-4)

7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
1925

1937

1949

1989

2001

2013
1901
1905
1909
1913
1917
1921

1929
1933

1941
1945

1953
1957
1961
1965
1969
1973
1977
1981
1985

1993
1997

2005
2009

2017
Figure 1. Volume of mail delivered in Australia by the Postmaster-General’s Department and
Australia Post, from 1901 to 2017 (million items).
Source: Australia, Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Official Yearbook (1907–1975).
Australian Postal Commission (1976–1988), Annual Report. Australia Post (1989–2017), Annual Report.

created dissatisfaction with the working conditions of postal employees. One of the main causes of
dissatisfaction with Alfred Deakin’s Government in 1908, which led to it losing office was the
wages and conditions of workers in the Department. William Webster (Gwydir, Labor) moved on
April 9, 1908, that a Royal Commission be appointed to investigate.13 A Royal Commission was
finally appointed by the Deakin minority government on June 24, 1908, and it reported on October
5, 1910, after there had been a change in government and Andrew Fisher’s majority Labor
government was in office.
The Royal Commission examined the management, finance, and organization of the postal and
telegraphic services and the adoption of the report of this Commission was urged in both houses of
Parliament; however, its main recommendations were not subsequently adopted. Although some
members of the Labor Government, such as Webster, supported the main recommendation, the
majority did not. Some members of the opposition were also opposed.14 This main recommenda-
tion was that the post office should be run by a board of three commissioners, on more ‘‘com-
mercial lines’’ and that staff be removed from the jurisdiction of the Public Services Board. It also
recommended that the revenue of the post office should cover its costs, although cross subsidies
would be allowed for (Australia, Royal Commission, 1910, pp. 8–11).15 The Labor members of
Parliament who opposed the changes did so because of the perceived threat to the rights of
employees and the role of the Conciliation and Arbitration Court, while resistance from opposition
members tended to come from rural-based members, who were concerned about the expansion of
services to country regions. Both concerns have remained among politicians to this day and help to
explain the continued opposition of many to reform of the post office.
Because of the opposition, nothing was done to implement the main recommendations of the
Royal Commission, although they were to be raised periodically by subsequent government

13. Australia, Parliament, House of Representatives, Hansard, April 9, 1908, p. 10402.

14. Australia, Parliament, House of Representatives, Hansard, November 9, 1911, pp. 2446–2466; 10 November 1911,
pp. 2500–30.
15. The Argus, October 6, 1910, p. 8.
Abbott 145

inquiries. This occurred as early as 1915 when an inquiry into the business management of the
Australian Post Office was conducted. This inquiry recommended that a general manager be
appointed with ‘‘full control of staff’’ and ‘‘the powers now vested in the Public Service Board’’
and that revenue should cover costs (Australia, Robert McC Anderson, 1915, pp. 39–40).16 The
inquiry accepted that many of the minor recommendations of the 1910 Royal Commission had
been implemented, including the creation of separate accounts for the different areas of operation
(postal, telegraph, and telecommunications), the appointment of a Chief Accountant at Central
Office to introduce a uniform system of accounting, and in May 1911, the creation of a uniform
rate for standard letters across the country, but still noted the unprofitability of the Department (an
annual report of the Department was first issued in 1911). It also noted that after 1913, some loan
financing was obtained for capital expansion; however, the financial constraints of the Treasury
remained important, and the Department was still organized along state lines with each containing
its own mail, post, telephone, and telegraph branches (Australia, Robert McC Anderson, 1915,
pp. 39–40).
The next investigation came when the Economies Commission reported on the Postmaster-
General’s Department and other departments in 1919–1921, and although it recognized that
improvements had been made was critical of some aspects of the operations of the post office.
It also recommended a board be created and the detachment of the staff from the jurisdiction of the
Public Service Board, although again nothing was done about this proposal (Australia, Federal
Economy Commission, 1921; Daily Telegraph, 1921, p. 6, 10).17 The Economics Commission
attributed the improvement in earnings of the Department to be due to increases in postal charges
rather than in ‘‘more economical methods’’ and were likely not sustainable.18
Although no substantial reorganization took place in response to the reports in 1910, 1915,
and 1919–1921, they did lead to some improvements in the management of the Department and
created the expectation that it would cover its overall costs, provide some services at a loss with
cross-subsidies from the more profitable businesses and as far as possible expand the telephone
service. In achieving the latter, it was inhibited by the fact that as a government department
additional funds required for its expansion were provided by Parliament and basic charges could
be varied only by Parliament. This meant that the provision of funds had to compete with other
areas of government services and pricing was the subject of political pressures. In the case of the
standard letter price, this was established across all states in 1911 and then increased during the
war to help finance the war effort. This was further increased in 1920 and helped to push
the Department towards breaking even.
As the operations of the postal service were combined with that of telegraph and telephones, and
then broke down according to the states, it is difficult to determine the level of profitability of it in
its early years. No separate data were published until 1913 of the finances of the individual
branches of the Department (after the report of the Royal Commission and appointment of a
Central Accountant), but after 1913, however, it was apparent that the postal services section was
becoming profitable and was cross-subsidizing the telegraph and telephone sections (see Figure 3).
Improvements in management, better integration of the various state operations, growth in

16. The Argus, April 19, 1915, p. 6.

17. The Argus, May 15, 1919, p. 4; Australia, Parliament, House of Representatives, Hansard, November 11, 1921,
p. 12707.
18. Sydney Morning Herald, April 7, 1921, p. 10.
146 Competition and Regulation in Network Industries 19(3-4)

12.0

10.0

8.0

6.0

4.0

2.0

0.0
1905

1913

1921

1929

1937

1945

1953

1961

1969

1977

1985

1993

2001

2009

2017
1901

1909

1917

1925

1933

1941

1949

1957

1965

1973

1981

1989

1997

2005

2013
Figure 2. Standard Australian letter stamp price in constant dollar terms (1969 ¼ 1.00).
Source: Australia, Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Official Yearbook (1907–1975),
Labour Reports (1911–1959). Australian Postal Commission (1976–1988), Annual Report.
Australia Post (1989–2017). Australian Bureau of Statistics (1960–2017), Consumer Price Index.

volumes of mail, and wartime increases in stamp prices (and further increases in 1920 and later in
the 1930s; see Figure 2) meant that the aim to cover costs of providing postal services was achieved
in the 1920s and continued in the 1930s. What improvements that took place in the postal service at
this time was mainly in the speed of delivery with domestic airmail being introduced in the 1920s
and international airmail in the 1930s in line with global trends.
The Postmaster-General’s Department tended to cover costs with its postal, telephone, and
telegraph revenue, although the operations of the Department did embody a fair degree of
cross-subsidization. In the pre-Second World War period, the tendency was for postal users to
cross-subsidize telephone users and the capital expansion of the telephone network, but from the
1940s the reverse was true. This pre–Second World War trend received explicit political support,
with much of the debate in Parliament on the reports in 1921, for instance, focusing on the need to
extend telephone services rather than on the conduct of the postal services, and indeed most
advocated that: ‘‘expenditure (on telephones) in the Postal Department . . . should be increased.’’19
In addition, country users of postal services tended to be cross-subsidized by urban users. This
cross-subsidization was certainly well-known and attracted political interest. After 1924, the
portfolio often (but not always) was held by Country Party politicians, who tended to concentrate
on the importance of extending telephones services to country and regional centers, retaining as
many post offices in small centers as practical, along with maintaining the cross-subsidization of
urban to rural users through the use of flat charges per service. Even in the case of Liberal and
Labor Party holders of the portfolio, they often represented regional electorates or were regional-
based members of the Senate.
Funds from the profits of post, therefore, were used to expand the country telephone network.
Profit margins on post tended to be healthy in the 1920s, and after dipping in the worst of the
depression years when mail volumes fell (see Figure 3), were high again in the 1930s and 1940s.
This was at least partly due to rises in charges that occurred in 1918, 1920, and again in 1930.

19. Australia, Parliament, House of Representatives, Hansard, November 11, 1921, p. 12,707.
Abbott 147

Figure 3. Profit margins and net earnings, post and PMG Department 1913 to 1975 (percentage).
Source: Australia, Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics (1907–1972), Official
Yearbook.

Overall, the real price of stamps was higher in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, then it had been during
the years just prior to and during the early years of the First World War (Figure 2).
In the 1950s, the postal service began to make losses in most years as can be seen from
the data in Table 1 and Figure 3. The losses of the post in the 1950s were at least partly
caused by the tendency for the real price of stamps to decline throughout the decade (see
Figure 2), bust also took place because growth in mail volumes lagged behind that of growth
in general (as people increasingly used telephones). Rises in price in the early 1960s helped
to make the post break even (a profit of $A1.050 million in 1963; Table 3) but in the mid to
late 1960s, these rises in price were insufficient to eliminate these losses (see Table 3). The
telephone service at this time, in contrast, made a profit and expanded its operations at a
steady rate. Within both services, there was a strong tendency for cross-subsidization to
continue to also flow from urban to rural users and from the business community to the
general public.
Reorganizations took place in 1954 with the focus on more efficient management,
control, and changing technological and consumer needs. The Director-General of the Post
Office undertook an overseas inspection and on returning introduced a divisional form of
organization.20 Divisional heads were responsible for the coordination of overall manage-
ment control of a number of branches with related functions. This basic form of organi-
zation, with some modifications, was to be retained until the Department was broken up
in 1975.
Up until 1959, the Department obtained capital funding free of interest from Treasury funds,
which effectively meant that taxpayers subsidized users. The Ad hoc Committee of Inquiry 1959–
1960 advocated that the post office be managed more along business lines (Australia, Ad Hoc
Committee of Inquiry into the Commercial Accounts of the Post Office, 1961, pp. 1–2). From 1945
to 1960, the capital works were financed largely through interest free loans from the Consolidated

20. Sydney Morning Herald, December 9, 1954, p. 9.

148 Competition and Regulation in Network Industries 19(3-4)

Table 3. Activity and profits of the Australian Postmaster-General’s Department, from 1946 to 1975.

Year ended Postal Telephone Total profit Postal Telephone Fixed Employment
June profit $A000’ profit $A000’ $A000’ items m calls m assets $Am no

1946 2268 3058 3491 1166 799 177 79,858

1947 2841 2534 4802 1234 857 191 77,000
1948 1623 1250 3535 1311 918 209 75,836
1949 297 346 1493 1376 956 232 82,000
1950 1154 721 4458 1466 957 270 90,029
1951 1813 30 4876 1525 1004 324 93,659
1952 2107 544 663 1483 1024 390 90,500
1953 2417 2932 270 1506 1048 446 89,644
1954 1849 3221 1209 1604 1114 507 91,186
1955 2254 2905 2291 1653 1193 570 94,888
1956 2404 3179 1293 1740 1285 639 96,621
1957 1526 5281 3820 1783 1340 716 100,132
1958 1954 6294 5047 1897 1408 799 101,554
1959 851 6936 8150 1951 1425 887 103,175
1960 2800 11,800 1953 1612 983 103,809
1961 1960 3567 5527 2048 1700 1086 104,241
1962 754 3169 3923 2101 1727 1196 104,214
1963 1050 2576 1526 2202 1894 1366 105,258
1964 956 1550 594 2342 2054 1508 104,722
1965 2617 6829 4212 2443 2150 1661 106,087
1966 10,342 10,218 124 2556 2198 1844 108,078
1967 23,580 2077 21,503 2683 2313 2060 112,992
1968 20,160 10,511 9649 2648 2447 2287 115,752
1969 8701 16,738 8037 2624 2614 2562 116,801
1970 19,967 21,949 1982 2725 2860 2812 120,415
1971 25,489 23,846 1643 2806 3073 3201 122718
1972 11,253 71,052 59,799 2767 3245 3582 123,322
1973 20,892 62,115 41,223 2828 3422 4010 127,057
1974 54,518 59,192 4674 2818 3669 4531 130,000
1975 64,596 95,125 30,529 2682 3905 5169 132,484

Source: Australia, Postmaster-General’s Department (1946–1968), Annual Report of the Postmaster-General. Australia,
Postmaster-General’s Department (1969–1975), Annual Report/Australian Post Office.

Revenue Fund. In late 1959, a new policy was announced in that revenue was to be sufficient to
recoup operating and maintenance costs as well as make a reasonable return on new capital
(Australia, Ad Hoc Committee of Inquiry into the Commercial Accounts of the Post Office,
1961, pp. 2–3). In 1968, an amendment to the Post and Telegraph Act established a Post Office
Trust Account, a trading account within which the Department paid its receipts and met its
expenditure. This change was important as it meant that more business like accounting and
financial management practices could be introduced.
Growth in the volume of mail was strong in the 1950s and 1960s (see Figure 1 and Table 4),
although not as strong as growth in GDP (in contrast to the pre–Second World war situation).
Speed, however, was improved by the use of more trucks, motor bikes, and air travel, and
Abbott 149

Table 4. Australian growth per annum of GDP, mail growth, and productivity indicators of the Australian
Postmaster-General’s Department, from the 1900s to the 1970s.

Labor productivity Multifactor productivity

GDP growth % pa Mail growth % pa growth % pa growth % pa

1900s 0.7 6.0 na na

1910s 5.3 2.6 na na
1920s 1.8 4.1 3.0 1.8
1930s 0.7 0.4 0.1 1.7
1940s 3.1 2.4 1.2 0.3
1950s 4.4 3.5 1.5 0.1
1960s 5.5 3.1 2.8 0.6
1970s* 3.4 0.4 1.5 0.1

Source: GDP growth: 1900–1939: Butlin (1962); Australian Domestic Product: 1940–1975: Commonwealth Bureau of Census
and Statistics (1966–1975), Australian National Accounts: (1955–1965) National Income and Expenditure. Mail growth:
Australia, Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics (1907–1975), Official Yearbook. Productivity figures: Number of
people employed plus contractors was used as the labor input, real value of fixed assets as the capital input and the postal
items delivered and telephone calls made as the outputs. The change in productivity was estimated using a DEA Malmquist
approach. Coelli, Prasada Rao, and Battersee (2005).
*Years from 1970 to 1975.

electronic mail handling was first introduced in the mid-1960s.21 Growth in labor productivity
of the Department overall was reasonable, although multifactor productivity growth less so
(see Table 4). This was probably due to the expansion of the capital-intensive telephone
network to more marginal regions, with high capital costs, and low volumes of service. It
is notable that in contrast to stagnant growth in multifactor productivity, growth in labor
productivity was solid throughout the 1950s and 1960s (Table 4). Revenue covered costs for
the Department as a whole, but not for postal services, which by the 1960s was being cross-
subsidized by the telephone service. During the 1950s, this lack of profitability was caused in
part by a fall in real prices, but in the late 1960s, real stamp prices rose and lowered the losses
without eliminating them.
One difficulty in achieving higher levels of productivity in the 1960s was the state of industrial
relations. Staff employed by the Department continued to be employed after the Second World
War under the conditions set by the Public Service Board. The Board throughout the 1960s,
therefore, was responsible for negotiating wages and conditions with postal and telephone unions
and this was to be a major bone of contention throughout the decade. It meant that the Depart-
ment could not negotiate directly with its employees and general dissatisfaction with the manner
in which public services pay and conditions affected the operations of the Department led to a rise
in questions about its operations. Although overall in the 1960s, the Postmaster-General’s Depart-
ment covered its costs in some years the post was particularly unprofitable. The years of the early
1970s saw things get worse.

21. Mechanization in the form of parcel sorting machines, letter conveyor systems, coding systems, and scanning machines
was introduced in the 1960s. This involved making mail processing increasingly centralized. The Redfern exchange in
Sydney was the largest, but it also had considerable industrial problems which led to a more decentralized approached
with suburban mail sorting centers being established from the 1970s onwards.
150 Competition and Regulation in Network Industries 19(3-4)

Reform
Late in the 1960s, dissatisfaction began to mount about the operations of the Department. At the
core of this dissatisfaction were the disputes between the unions and the Public Service Board
about a range of working conditions. The view of the unions was that the Department should be
separated from the jurisdiction of the Public Service Board, and in 1967, this became the official
policy of the Australian Labor Party. The Amalgamated Postal Workers Union in particular from
1957 onwards pressed for the separation of the Australian Post Office from the jurisdiction of the
Public Services Board (Australian Labor Party, 1967; Waters, 1978, pp. 239–40). The Deputy
Leader of the Labor Party in the Senate, Sam Cohen, first advocated on behalf of the Labor Party
that the Department be separated from the Public Services on May 15, 1968, at that it be estab-
lished as a ‘‘public corporation.’’22
The leader of the Australian Labor Party, Gough Whitlam, made it quite clear in speeches to the
postal and telecommunications unions and in policy speeches in both 1969 and 1972 that if elected
he would end the jurisdiction of the Public Service Board over post and telecommunications
workers (Whitlam, 1967a, 1967b, 1969, 1972). There is some evidence that the Australian Labor
Party was influenced by reforms taking place overseas, especially in the United Kingdom and the
United States where postal services were corporatized in 1969 and 1970, respectively (Moyal,
1984, p. 268).
On coming to office in December 1972, Whitlam and the new Postmaster-General, Lionel
Bowen, moved to implement the new government’s policy. In March 1973, a Committee of three
was appointed by Bowen to undertake an investigation of the Australian Post Office. The Chair-
man James Vernon, as well as being a long-standing general manager of CSR Limited, had chaired
the commission of inquiry into economic affairs in the mid-1960s. Many of the submissions to the
Committee were more interested in the nature of cross-subsidies rather than the structure of the
Department and most notably the Country Party’s representative before the Committee (Ian
Sinclair) opposed any restructuring. A number of unions resisted the notion of organizational
restructuring, although a few supported it (Moyal, 1984, p. 250).
On April 19, 1974, the Committee made its report to the Government and in doing so advocated
the separation of the two services (post and telecommunications) on the grounds that they differed
in nature and that a single board was unlikely to be able to understand the combined complexities
of their operation. It was argued that post was a fundamentally more labor-intensive industry than
telecommunications, even though the former had seen a degree of technological change in terms of
improved trucks, planes, motorcycles, and letter scanners (Australia, Australian Post Office Com-
mission of Enquiry, 1974, p. xiv). No recommendation was made to free up either industry to
competition and indeed the Committee did not examine monopoly condition as it was not part of
the Committee’s terms of reference.
Quickly, the Government accepted the Committee’s recommendations and Legislation was
submitted to Parliament in the Senate in early 1975 by the then Postmaster-General, Reg Bishop,
and later to the House of Representatives where it was entered by Lionel Bowen (by then the
Minister for Manufacturing) (Whitlam, 1985, p. 697).23 The legislative changes were to receive the

22. Australia, Parliament, Senate, Hansard, May 15, 1968, p. 1037.

23. Postal Services Act No 54 of 1975. Telecommunications Act. No 55 of1975. Postal and Telecommunications Com-
missions (Transitional Provisions) Act No 56 of 1975. Australia, Parliament, Senate, Hansard, April 13, 1975, p. 1256.
Australia, Parliament, House of Representatives, Hansard, May 1975, p. 2874.
Abbott 151

support of the opposition coalition in parliament, although it did oppose the merger of the tele-
communications services of the Department with the Overseas Telecommunications Commission,
which the government and two of the Committee members favored. The Country Party at this point
supported the passing of the legislation having changed its earlier position. The opposition sup-
ported the Bills but expressed concern about rural delivery.24
In June 1975, therefore, two commissions were created, the Australian Postal Commission,
which was responsible for the country’s postal service, and the Australian Telecommunications
Commission for the telephone system, with responsibility for many licensing and other functions
remaining with the Postal and Telecommunications Department (in 1976, the Department was
renamed the Department of Communications). The Commission consisted of seven commis-
sioners, including a managing director, and was required under the Postal Services Act 1975 to
fulfil the universal postal service, to break even, covering its operating expenditure and fund at
least a half of its capital expenditure.25
In 1982, another enquiry (the Bradley Report) took up the issue of the monopoly provision and
supported its continuation, recommending that the post have more scope to move into emerging,
competitive areas. This position was generally supported in parliament with the Minister for
Communications, Neil Brown stating that: ‘‘the Committee’s report recommends very strongly
that the continuing monopoly position of the Australian Postal Commission should be main-
tained.’’26 The government also decided to maintain the same weight restriction to competition
but to allow competition in the carriage of letters, charged at least 10 times the standard letter
rate.27 The Bradley Inquiry was the first that reassessed the principles of universal availability and
uniform pricing of the standard postal article service (Australia, Parliament, Committee of Inquiry
into the Monopoly Position of the Australian Postal Commission, 1982, p. 21).
Later in 1989 as part of the Hawke Government’s microeconomic reform package, the Aus-
tralian Postal Commission was fully corporatized and became Australia Post Limited. This
removed much of the government’s operational scrutiny, including the removal of legislative
control over pricing. Australia’s post’s pricing for monopoly services was overseen by the Gov-
ernment’s Prices Surveillance Authority (from 1984), and after 1996, the Australian Competition
and Consumer Commission, although with the Minister still retaining final power over price
changes. The Australian Postal Corporation Act 1989 established a separate Board of Directors,
required the new company to generate a rate of return and pay taxes. Corporatization was aimed to
bring Australia Post more into line with private sector competitors and subject it to the disciplines
of the market place, and as the Minister, Ralph Willis stated make the new company:

as efficient as possible, and responsive to consumers’ needs, while at the same time maintain:
‘Australia Post’s social responsibility to provide universal service, that is to deliver its community service
obligations (CSOs) . . . the provision of a letter service available at a single uniform rate of postage for
carriage within Australia by ordinary post of letters that are standard postal articles’.28

24. Australia, House of Representatives, Hansard, Senate, May 20, 1975, pp. 1568–1569; Australia, House of Repre-
sentatives, Hansard, May 28, 1975, pp. 2927–2928.
25. Postal Services Act No 54 of 1975, Sections 24, 74.
26. Australia, parliament, House of Representatives, Hansard, September 23, 1982, p. 1788.
27. Canberra Times, September 24, 1982, p. 10. Australia, Parliament, House of Representatives, Hansard, September 23,
1982, pp. 1786–1787.
28. Australia, Parliament, House of Representatives, Hansard, April 13, 1989, pp. 1610, 1611.
152 Competition and Regulation in Network Industries 19(3-4)

In 1992, the Industry Commission also examined Australia Post’s monopoly status but failed to
convince the Government to have it removed (Industry Commission, 1992). A final investigation
in 1998 by the National Competition Commission recommended that business mail be deregulated,
although the government rejected this and proposed instead a more modest reform. Even this
reform was not to get through Parliament and the Postal Services Amendment Bill 2000 was
allowed to lapse, after opposition in the Senate.
This has meant that despite the increasing commercialization of the postal services, the mono-
poly on standard letters still survives in Australia, similar to the case of the United States, but
dissimilar to that of countries like New Zealand (2003), the United Kingdom (2006), and Singa-
pore (2017) where monopoly provision has been abolished. To date as well, there has been no
serious debate about Australia Post being privatized along the lines undertaken in the United
Kingdom (2013), Japan (2007), and Germany (2000).

Economic performance since 1975

The aim of the Government in establishing the Australian Postal Commission and later conversion
to Australia Post Ltd (and the Telecommunications Commission) was to increase the commercial
focus of the organization, as well as encourage it to operate as ‘‘efficiently and economically’’ as
possible, while at the same time maintaining its community service obligations (the universal
service). The Commission was not only expected to cover its operating and capital expenses but
was expected to pay interest on any funds borrowed for capital expenditure and to generate a return
for the Government (and after 1989 to pay corporate taxes). After 1975, the Australian Postal
Commission was able to achieve these goals through a combination of price increases and pro-
ductivity improvements.
Although it was hoped that the reorganization of the post at this time would mean that it
operated in a more commercial fashion no attempt was made at this time to eliminate the postal
monopoly. Despite the changes, therefore, the commercial imperatives that affected most private
firms did not operate for the Australian Postal Commission. In the private sector, businesses must
respond to competition and consumers who are free to choose more responsive suppliers. Ineffi-
cient allocations of resources mean companies are subject to bankruptcy. The postal service, even
after reorganization, was not subject to these disciplines; therefore, the commercialization of the
postal service did not correspond to the practices of a business firm, and in fact the degree of
commercialization that Australia Post should be opened up to has remained a subject of debate and
inquiry right up until the present day.
Despite the criticisms, the performance of the postal industry in the period from the 1960s did
have some redeeming characteristics. From Table 4 and Figure 1, it can be seen that both the postal
industry enjoyed substantial growth in activity during the 1960s (in terms of the number of postal
items handled). Studies undertaken by economists in 1972 and 1973 assessing the growth of
productivity in the 1960s found that there had been improvements but differed in opinion over
the scale of these improvements (Abbott, 2013; Bhattacharya, 1972; Cullen, 1973). The Post-
Master General’s Department postal service did incur operating losses (Table 3), but this was
partly because of the decline in the real price of stamps through the 1950s, early and mid-1960s
(they did begin to rise in the late 1960s; see Figure 2).
More substantial postal losses were incurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s (see Table 3). This
situation substantially changed in 1975. From Figure 4, it can be seen that the postal service made a
profit after 1975 and considerable profits after full corporatization in 1989. Initially, this was brought
Abbott 153

25

20

15

10

0
1975/76
1976/77
1977/78
1978/79
1979/80
1980/81
1981/82
1982/83
1983/84
1984/85
1985/86
1986/87
1987/88
1898/89
1989/90
1990/91
1991/92
1992/93
1993/94
1994/95
1995/96
1996/97
1997/98
1998/99
1999/2000
2000/01
2001/02
2002/03
2003/04
2004/05
2005/06
2006/07
2007/08
2008/09
2009/10
2010/11
2011/12
2012/13
2013/14
2015/16
-5

Figure 4. EBIT/total assets of Australia post, from 1975/1976 to 2015/2016 (percentage).

Source: Australian Postal Commission (1976–1988), Annual Report. Australia Post (1989–2017),
Annual Report.

about by the substantial price rise of basic stamps that took place in 1975 (see Figure 2).29 This rise was
necessary because of the ending of a cross-subsidy from the telephone service when separation into two
commissions occurred. Over time, however, the real price of stamps declined throughout the 1980s and
1990s (see Figure 2), which meant that the increase in profits in the 1990s had to be achieved through
the creation of greater levels of productivity. Growth in productivity from 1975 through to 2000 was
considerable, which meant that Australia Post was able to achieve higher levels of profitability into the
twentieth century. Increased productivity eventually enabled Australia Post to be profitable; and
standard postal prices were returned to the real dollar value of the 1960s, by the mid-1990s. These
improvements oak place for a variety of reasons, including the increased using of scanning equipment,
establishment of more mail sorting centers, and conversion and extension of the use of post agencies
into licensed post offices that occurred from 1993 onwards.
Finally, it is possible to compare the improvements in efficiency of the postal sector with the
economy as a whole. For the Australian economy, the decade from the late 1970s to the late 1980s
was generally disappointing. Growth was slow, and productivity growth in most sectors was even
slower. One striking exception was the postal industry sector. As the figures in Table 5 show,
growth in output and productivity (as indicated by output per employment) was brisk throughout
the whole period and considerably above national averages. Similarly, the government’s own
investigations of productivity improvement in government-owned businesses found credible,
yearly improvements in postal services.

29. In September 1975, a few months after the creation of the Postal Commission, the basic stamp price in Australia was
raised from 10 to 18 cents. This largely took place to replace the lost cross subsidy that separation created.
154 Competition and Regulation in Network Industries 19(3-4)

Table 5. Australia post and Australian GDP, growth, and productivity growth (annual average percent per
annum).

Australia Post National MFP

Output Input use MFP GDP growth MFP

From 1976/1977 to 1980/1981 4.64 0.50 5.14 2.15 1.54

From 1981/1982 to 1987/1988 4.00 1.50 2.50 3.60 1.39
From 1988/1989 to 1998/1999 4.25 0.85 3.40 2.99 1.36
From 1999/2000 to 2009/2010 0.97 0.02 0.95 3.12 0.04
From 2010/2011 to 2015/2016 3.30 1.35 4.65 2.50 1.67
From 1976/1977 to 2015/2016 1.700 0.64 1.06 3.17 0.85

Source: Australian Postal Commission (1976–1988), Annual Report. Australia Post (1989–1917), Annual Report. GDP: Gross
Domestic Product; MFP: Multi-Factor Productivity.

This situation did not continue into the twenty-first century. Eventually after 2000 mail volumes
began to fall, as they did in many countries, in the face of electronic competition, which made it
difficult for the post to retain its high levels of productivity and profitability. In 2014/2015,
Australia Post recorded a loss for the first time since 1980/1981 (Figure 4), bringing in to question
its long-term sustainability.

Conclusion
In its early years after federation, the Australian post office took a number of years to work through
the merger of its different state-based parts. Around the time of the First World War, the Depart-
ment managed to cover its operational costs, with the postal section of the organization moving
into surplus, aided by price rises, and strongly growing demand for postal services. The profits to
the postal services tended to be high in those years immediately after the increases in postal
charges. This profitability on the part of postal services was used to cross-subsidize the expansion
of the telephone service, with this flow of cross subsidy reversing in the 1950s.
Although initially, therefore, the Australian postal service operated with some problems, in the
period from the First World War through to the 1960s, the Department was considered a success as
it covered its costs, was able to cross-subsidize remote mail delivery, and helped to finance an
expansion of the telephone network.
The slowdown in demand in post and growing losses in the late 1960s and early 1970s of the
postal services, however, led to a creation of increased tension within the Postmaster-General’s
Department, which finally led to the establishment of post as a separate organization in 1975.
Subsequent large rises in stamp prices and productivity growth after 1975 enabled the post office to
reach a level of net profitability in the 1980s, and real stamp prices were allowed to decline until well
into the twenty-first century. This growth in productivity, therefore, meant that the post office could
pass on to consumers a steady reduction in real prices and a rise in returns to the government. The
combination of these two helped to create a general acceptance of the reforms that had occurred in the
1970s and 1980s and also enabled the post to continue to finance its universal service obligations.
This situation, however, began to unravel after 2008 when mail volumes began to decline in the
face of substantial competition from electronic forms of communication. This meant that Australia
Abbott 155

Post from the mid-2010s operates at a loss for the first time in decades, a situation only rectified by
substantial increases in postal charges. Looking forward, it is unlikely that this strategy will be a
sustainable one in the face of continued competition from electronic communication, although it is
still unclear what strategy Australian Post will undertake to enable it to survive.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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