WELL DONE to Rural Women NZ and Federated Farmers for fighting hard to ensure New Zealand Post continues posting mail in rural boxes five days a week for the next few years.
Kudos must also go to the Government and NZ Post for keeping this part of NZ Post’s deed of understanding in place and rightly recognising that rural New Zealand is different.
However, what is most disappointing are the ill-conceived claims – typically in some urban media – that this decision is evidence of the Government playing favourites with its rural base. It shows that the oft-mentioned rural-urban divide still has a way to go before it is bridged.
As no doubt both Feds and RWNZ argued, when lobbying for the maintenance of the current mail service to the rural sector, rural customers are unique when it comes to connectivity. Their remoteness prevents them from popping down to the doctor, trade store or shop to pick up what they need.
And despite the spread of the new technology, many in rural areas are either not connected to the internet or must still survive on a slow, dial-up service.
According to Statistics NZ, about 78% of rural households had access to the internet in 2012. As mentioned, dial-up is a reality in the hinterland. Even when the Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI) is completed in 2017, only 86% of rural households will have access to it. It’s estimated that some 80,000 rural New Zealanders will still be without high-speed internet access. That makes it very hard to do simple business things like paying a bill online, internet banking and accessing electronic information.
As Fed Farmers has rightly claimed, “rural delivery is a lifeline that right now they cannot afford to lose”. Or as RWNZ submitted, “rural post is a wraparound distribution service that is part of the fabric that holds rural communities together”.
With NZ Post’s deed to be reviewed again in 2020, hopefully the rollout of ultra-fast broadband will by then have gone further in rural areas. Until then, it is only fair rural NZ keeps its lifeline to the rest of the country via a five-day-a-week mail delivery service.