A campaign to stop a Sunshine Coast post office from closing is ramping up, with a rally scheduled for next month.
The Australian Citizens Party will hold a rally on February 18 to save the Maroochydore Post Office, which is scheduled to shut on March 7.
Australia Post has said the post office has experienced a 35 per cent fall in foot traffic, and the landlord, who has other plans for the premises, has given a notice to vacate.
The Australian Citizens Party has stepped in after the looming closure was brought to members’ attention.
The ACP has concerns about the planned closure of post offices around the country. Australia Post’s website says it has 4198 post offices. It is required to have 4000.
Australia Post CEO Paul Graham has indicated his intention to address what he has described as Australia Post’s “outsized” retail network.
The ACP says the public must get behind the Australia-wide campaign to save all post offices by demanding that the government make them a public post office ‘People’s Bank’.
ACP state secretary Jan Pukallus said post offices provided vital services in regards to bill payments and banking in an era when bank branches were closing.
Ms Pukallus said Australia Post had a network that big business could not match and that should be used, not reduced.
“Australia Post is a relatively young country compared to England, China, Egypt. We don’t have the antiquities but we do have Australia Post,” she said.
“It’s like the RSL – you should never sell it off. We need to be saving all post offices.”
The rally to save the Maroochydore Post Office will run from 10-11am and follow a 1km route from 2 First Avenue to Ocean Street and back again.
A literature table and petition will be available under a marquee at 2 First Avenue until 1pm.
The ACP urged members of the public to contact their local member of federal parliament to voice their concerns about post offices closures.
Darcy Saville, who brought the closure to the attention of readers in a Sunshine Coast News story last year, encouraged people to attend the rally.
“We need to do everything we can to save the post office,” he said.
Australia Post has said customers will continue to be served by a post office at Cotton Tree and another at Sunshine Plaza, where post office boxes will be relocated to.
Mr Saville has said frail and disabled customers will have difficulty making the further journey to the other post offices, and it remains to be seen if post office boxes will be available 24/7 at the shopping centre.
Ms Pukallus was unsure if it was too late to save the Maroochydore Post Office but said the action would put pressure on authorities to keep post offices open.
