The days of service with a smile
With the news that AusPost will soon only deliver mail every second day, landlines may soon be phased out, and the push for a cashless society, you wonder how so many older people, like myself, will cope with this impersonal path that society is heading down.
The only way to get a letter delivery will soon be in a parcel which will be delivered daily. My grandkids will get birthday cards soon by drone unless these new gadgets are shot down by near sighted duck hunters.
Express Post, as defined by AusPost, means that a letter sent from one suburb to a neighbouring suburb currently takes three to four business days, and you might be better hand delivering.
They call that ‘exercising’ your rights to mail, while the concept of ‘the mail always gets through’ has been exorcised from our lexicon.
It was much faster and cheaper back in the ‘good old days’. It didn’t matter at all on the volume of letters being sent.
Mail was a service, as was telecommunication. Now everything is measured by the almighty dollar.
Service has been sold off and it is something that is not mentioned as it is now taboo and likely to see you end up in court under the hate crimes act.
We have outsourced just about everything including some politicians’ morality...okay, that’s stretching it a bit...what morals?
Post offices have to pay their own way and we now have to wade through shelves of stuff that you only saw advertised on TV and that came with a bonus of six steak knives. You don’t even get the knives these days, and who can afford steak anyway?
I live in a dead spot for communication in a large country town, just 100km from Melbourne. My neighbours can get reception, but I have to stand in the middle of the road with one leg in the air.
It’s a quiet street, but I do have to keep on the good side of my neighbours as a triple zero call after they damage their car’s bumper on my body may not get through.
Telstra say that if I cut some trees down, I may get reception in my house.
The council and the landlord are not keen on the idea and I may end up buried beneath those trees or a mountain of paperwork and court costs if I try.
Get a new smart phone they say. I have the latest and it is much smarter than they are, but not as smart as Telstra whose share price rises as its service drops.
As for cash, the little I have after all the price gouging by supermarkets, I keep for when the internet banking crashes or some Nigerian princess guts my bank balance by hacking into it.
I’d write a letter of complaint or call my local MP but who knows when and if I would get through.
Besides, the brown paper bag full of cash required to get any action done has become a thing of the past. You now have to pay via Visa or Mastercard.
I miss the good old days. Days when service came with a smile.
Now it doesn’t even come, let alone with a smile, and if it did come, it would come with an emoji that looks like something that the neighbour’s dog leaves on my nature strip.
Greg Tuck, Warragul
Australian made vehicles but, despite government subsidies, the manufacturers pulled out anyway because it was no longer viable to construct Holdens or Fords down under.
Mr Albanese seems oblivious to the fact the demise of manufacturing in the first place was largely because of politicians like him. It is easy for taxpayer salaried lawmakers to bring in regulations that other people have to comply with.
In control freak Australia it seems the only job which doesn’t need “accreditation” is that of the pollies who are churning out the never ending rules for others to contend with.
It was excessive government interference, stifling legislative controls and crippling demands of trade unions that led to many manufacturing firms deciding it was no longer worth the effort or financial risk to continue.
Jobs were lost and tax revenue dried up as a direct result of ever increasing regulations and obligations heaped upon businesses, both large and small. It continues to this day and is getting worse.
Who would want to start a manufacturing business in Australia today with all the hurdles and disincentives put there by government? Not forgetting of course the lack of reliable and affordable energy as a result of lunacy net-zero policies.
Wisdom has it if you want people to do something you make it easy for them; not difficult. If you want manufacturing businesses to thrive you must allow them to get on with it unhindered by unnecessary bureaucratic burdens and financial obligations.
It is not just manufacturing that has suffered. Ask anyone in farming, building, transport, hospitality or any other sector of commerce. They will all tell you the same. What they need most of all is for government at all levels; federal, state and local, to get off their backs.
So, if the prime minister is really serious about a renaissance in manufacturing he should forget about throwing public money at risky ventures and instead start rolling back red tape and green tape and standing up to the onerous demands of unions who wield so much influence within Labor governments.
Matthew Laverack, Warragul
Not a sign
Lynton Malley draws facile conclusions, (“Signs of cooling”, Gaz 16 /4), from the fact there has apparently been a snowfall somewhere in Victoria in April this year.
Firstly, “global warming alarmists” are not a “faction” - “a small organised dissenting group within a larger one”, (Oxford dictionary), a term which is more appropriately applied to denialists, who comprise an ever dwindling subset of global conspiracy theorists.
Secondly Lynton, no, early snow anywhere is not a sign that “the planet may be cooling”, as much as you would like it to be.
John Duck, Trafalgar