Heather du Plessis-Allan: I'm with NZ Post - Stop delivering to letterboxes

It looks like NZ Post might finally pull a trigger they haven’t pulled yet and stop delivering mail to some letterboxes. 

It's kind of been on the cards for some time, but up until now the proposal has mostly been to not deliver to new houses. 

Now, what they're talking about is not delivering to existing houses, houses that already have letterboxes and have been getting mail in them for years. 

So, no more mail. Instead it will be replaced with clusters of boxes where we have to go get our mail. 

According to the plan they would cut out 5% of letterboxes every year, so presumably within 20 years it’s all done and we have no more mail arriving in any letterboxes. 

Look, I’m surprised. 

I'm pleasantly surprised they are prepared to be as bold as this, because this has got to be done. 

Letters are a luxury that cost us a lot of money. 

This is what we have to understand. It’s not free. 

NZ Post lost $14m in the last financial year and it lost $56m the year before. 

That’s money the taxpayer could be spending on something more worthwhile. 

Most things you can get on email now, things like your power bill, water bill and rates bill. 

Some things still come in the mail, like credits cards and the registration for your car. But that can be switched to courier, and sometimes already are. 

I get that there are communities that will be hit harder than others if the mail stops arriving, especially the elderly and rural communities. 

But frankly it’ll be a schlep for everyone to have to wander down to the cluster letterbox in town to retrieve the mail items. But at least we’ll all be in it together. 

The writing has been on the wall for ages. 

The trend on letters has only been in one direction. It’s not a surprise it’s coming to this. 

It’s just a pleasant surprise NZ Post has got the courage to actually start doing it. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It looks like New Zealand Posts might finally pull a
trigger that they haven't pulled yet, and they are now
talking about actually stopping the delivery of mail to some
letter boxes. Now this you might get, hold on, Have
I heard this before? You kind of have heard this before,
but not really, because up to now, the proposal has been,
as far as I can see, mostly to deliver, not
to stop delivering to new houses. What they're now talking

(00:20):
about is actually not delivering to houses that already get
the letters. Right, so you already have a house, you
already have a letter box. Your letter box has been
getting letters for years. But now they're saying we're going
to stop doing that and instead, somewhere down the road
or somewhere in town have a cluster of boxes like
a post office where you basically have to go get
your mail. And according to the plan, if they get
their way, what they would do is they would cut
five percent of letter boxes every single year. So presumably

(00:43):
within twenty years you get to one hundred percent and
no one's getting any more mail anymore. Now I'm surprised
by this, And when I say surprised, unpleasantly surprised. I'm
surprised New Zealand Post is prepared to be this bold, because,
let's be honest about it, We're gonna have to do
this at some point, aren't we. I mean, letters are
a luxury. They cost us as a country a lot
of money. And this is what I think we fail
to understand a lot of the time. Getting the guy

(01:05):
around to drop your blinking I don't know whatever. Direct
mail from the taxpayer's union off to you is not free.
The New Zealand Post lost fourteen million dollars in the
last financial year. It lost fifty six million dollars in
the year before. That's money that we as a taxpayer
are basically losing. Now, most things you get you get
in the letter. You can actually get an email. Now,
you can get your power bill, your water bill, your

(01:25):
rates bill, whatever. Some things still have to come in
the mail. I give you that your credit card, maybe
that little thing that you put in that tails you've
got an existing warrant, fitness or regil, whatever it is.
But actually you can even get that stuff in Korea
instead of on the letters. I'm not sure that there's
anything that you have to get via a letter that
you can't get in some other form. Now, I'm not
heartless about this, right, I get that there are some

(01:47):
communities that are going to be hit harder than others
when eventually we get to the point where they are
actually pulling the letter letters out of our letter boxes,
the elderly, rural communities and so on. But frankly, it's
going to be a shlip for all of us. So
they have to go down to wherever and get the
letter out of the old cluster box in town. So
we're all going to be in this together. But here's
the thing, right, the writing's been on the wall for ages.

(02:08):
The trend in letters is only going one way, and
that's downhill. And it's not a surprise it's coming to this.
It's just a pleasant surprise that New Zealand Post has
actually got the courage to start doing this and talking
about it right now. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,
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