Updates from Australia Post

At Australia Post our priority is always the safety of our customers and staff.

At Australia Post, we are doing everything possible to keep delivering during the coronavirus pandemic. Almost all of our Post Offices are still open, while our posties and drivers are working to get parcels delivered to you.

We continue to monitor the developing situation around the spread of coronavirus COVID19, and in addition to measures already implemented, will now be taking further action to help protect customers and staff.

With our business adapting to the challenges the current pandemic presents, our normal practice of delivery has been impacted. We are experiencing significant delivery delays due to limited flights, hygiene and social distancing requirements in our network (such as one person unloading a loose load trailer which halves productivity) and an increase in parcel volumes as more people shop online.

We appreciate the current delays are causing frustration and increased customer enquiries.

We have made some important changes to some of our tracking notifications to provide your customers with more information about the progress of their delivery.

We have a new notification - "We’ve got your delivery details" - which will now be the first notification sent to you when Australia Post has confirmed receipt of the delivery.

We have also updated the "It’s on its way" notification to include information about delivery delays and help you to find out more detail on our website.

You will be aware the Federal Government has announced it will soon implement changes to allow Australia Post to operate under relaxed regulatory requirements, including removing the Priority Mail letter product, delivering letters every second business day in metropolitan areas (with no change to delivery frequency in rural or remote areas), and extending the delivery times for regular intrastate letters to five days after the day of posting.

Our people continue to work tirelessly under difficult circumstances to support you and your customers so we appreciate your ongoing support in treating them with the courtesy and respect they deserve.

The Post Office Network

For our Post Office network, we are asking customers if they are showing symptoms not to visit our Post Offices, and for all other customers to keep a distance of at least one metre from people, and continue to practice good hygiene. This includes washing your hands often with soap and water, using a tissue and covering your mouth when you cough or sneeze, and avoiding close contact with others, such as touching.

The Self Service Terminals at Post Offices will be temporarily unavailable to ensure customers and staff keep a safe distance from one-another.

The Delivery Network

For our delivery network, to help protect our posties, drivers and customers, in addition to measures already introduced around signature for delivery, again – we are asking for the practice of good social isolation techniques. If you are showing symptoms, please let your postie or driver know.

If you are not, please, we again ask customers to keep a distance of at least one metre from people, and continue to practice good hygiene.  Staff are continually directed to stay at home if they are feeling unwell.

Contact-less Delivery & Collection

Further, to minimise the risk of contracting or spreading coronavirus, all parcels - be it at a Post Office or at a residence - will no longer require a signature for delivery or collection.

In all cases, whether a driver or postie delivers to the door or a customer goes in to their local Post Office to collect a parcel, an Australia Post staff member will ask and record the customer’s name and sign on their behalf.

The customer will still need to be present for this to occur, but contact will be minimised by either leaving the parcel at the door until the driver or postie has left the premises or left for the customer to pick up on the counter.

We are committed to continuing delivery throughout our network and if we experience any disruptions resulting from Coronavirus, we will keep customers updated here.

We are acting to ensure that we can minimise transmission now as much as possible, protecting our customers and staff, while still continuing to deliver for Australians.