Al-anwar Newspaper English news in Australia
Post office licensees across Australia are planning to send $5 notes to Prime Minister Scott Morrison in protest of the investigation into Australia Post chief executive Christine Holgate and the gifting of $20,000 worth of Cartier luxury watches to senior executives.
The watches were given to executives as a reward for clinching multi-million dollar deals with three of the “big four” banks to allow their customers to do their banking at post offices.
The deal with the three banks – NAB, Westpac and Commonwealth Bank – has helped Australia Post generate $50 million in profit from its banking services, says Licensed Post Office Group executive director Angela Cramp.
Now, Australia Post staff and customers are mailing $5 notes to Prime Minister Scott Morrison – who last week labelled the gifting of the watches as “disgraceful” – as a symbol of support for Ms Holgate.
If each of the 2900 Licensed Post Offices across Australia were to post $5 to the Prime Minister, his office would receive a total of $14,500.
“It’s to show how insignificant that bloody sum of money was, $20,000, to get an increase of $100 million into Australia Post to distribute throughout the retail footprint,” Ms Cramp told AAP on Tuesday.
“The prime minister should be disgusted in himself”. Ms Cramp, who runs three licensed post offices across Wollongong and Bundanoon in NSW, says the Australia Post banking deal put an extra $20,000 into her bank account and enabled her to earn additional revenue and pay her staff and overheads.
“She’s turned the business around and she’s included us in the sharing of that pie… we do not want to go back to being exploited to provide dividends to the government,” Ms Cramp said. Ms Cramp has called for the immediate reinstatement of Ms Holgate, saying the government-owned postal business could go bust in a matter of months if it returns to the management model used before the arrival of its besieged chief executive.
“We will keep going until we get some result to this – we will die without Christine Holgate, we’ll be insolvent in a matter of months or years if the next CEO goes back to the previous management model and I’m not doing that,” she said.
Senior Australia Post executives are set to appear before a Senate inquiry next month to answer questions about their corporate spending, with Labor demanding chairman Lucio Di Bartolomeo face parliament to explain the gifting of the watches.
