AUSTRALIA POST take note: your refusal to install a drive-through street postal box for the elderly and disabled has drawn the ire of Disability Discrimination Commissioner Susan Ryan.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It has also drawn a huge response from ratepayers and readers, many of whom have signed a petition calling for a reversal of the service’s ban on such an installation in Armidale.
The matter was first raised about a year ago, when Armidale Dumaresq councillor Andrew Murat, for the sheer love of it, designed a prototype box allowing the elderly and disabled to post letters and parcels from their vehicles.
But instead of applauding such an idea, Australia Post has ruled out taking up the offer to install the special post box in Armidale.
It claims such an installation could be dangerous to posties clearing mailboxes and also to passing motorists.
It would be difficult to think of sillier reasons for such a refusal.
There is apparently a precedent in Queanbeyan where no such danger is posed to the public or posties.
The fact Australia Post, in its own accessibility action plan of two years ago, espouses a service providing accessible products and services makes its decision over the special postal box even more mysterious.
Maybe Australia Post is hoping the issue will simply fade over time; that people will forget Cr Murat’s prototype and it will be left to gather dust.
No way.
We will be watching and reporting as Ms Ryan takes up the cause of Australia Post’s disabled customers in Armidale.
At the very least we call for a trial of this drive-through street postal box.
What is there to lose?
No more procrastination. Every town in Australia must provide parking for the disabled; why not a postal box, too?