Benneydale food market has lost its NZ Post contract without community consultation. Photo Andy Campbell.
PARLIAMENTARY intervention is being sought after NZ Post closed its Maniaiti/Benneydale centre a couple of months ago.
Waitomo District mayor John Robertson wrote to the shareholding ministers of NZ Post Grant Robertson and Duncan Webb, after learning the centre was closed without discussion or consultation.
NZ Post’s communication with residents over the closure had been abysmal, John said.
He said he was approached by residents to seek a reversal of the NZ Post decision as he had been successful in his appeal to Waka Kotahi earlier this year when the old Kopaki bridge was about to be closed to all traffic – before the replacement was completed.
Benneydale Foodmarket owner Santana Morehu, pictured, said she lost the contract because of a dishonesty conviction 15 years ago.
She took over the business in April, then it took about a month to sign a contract with NZ Post because they tried to get the existing PO boxes fixed up and more added before she signed the contract.
NZ Post acted with less than 12 hours’ notice, she said.
NZ Post was there the morning after telling Santana of the decision and took all the mail and parcels.
“I can’t really say it’s all gone, because I have the mail lady out here when she can’t get to a person, so she gives me the parcel.
“Or she gives me the mail. I just don’t understand why they don’t give me the mail back if I’m still going to be collecting mail and parcels,” Santana said.
Loss of the contract was a real “kick in the butt”, Santana said. She was distraught and had to take time off.
It was not affecting the Benneydale Foodmarket business, “it was just the fact I lost it over something I did 15 years ago.”
She had hoped the locals who had lost their mail services would come together and help her get the contract reinstated, but there had been no help from anyone.
“They haven’t even come back to fix up their PO boxes. Why was it all done the way it was done? We could have come to some kind of agreement or something. This shop has had the mail forever.”
The business wasn’t being paid for the mail, but Santana said she was still receiving mail parcels.
“I’m always being asked to take the parcels and how can I say no. I love serving my community, I love it.
“I even told the mail lady she should get a contract for the mail considering the PO boxes were here, everybody still had keys.”
She is still receiving instructions from NZ Post on how to handle the mail.
“It’s like a kick in the face every time I get mail from them,” Santana said. “They can do their own job. I’m not a puppet that’s going to collect for them because they can’t get their mail deliveries right.”
At one stage locals tried to organise moving the PO boxes over to the hall. But after a meeting, Santana said NZ Post failed to contact anyone involved.
The manager of the business Sandhu Sandhu said Santana made repeated attempts to change NZ Post’s decision. They contacted a previous owner who agreed to take on the mail contract, to no avail.
There were elderly people in the district who only came to town every fortnight and were no longer receiving mail.
Some box holders had no mail, and no notification that the service was terminated – apart from the notice over the boxes stating the service was terminated and that people could collect their mail from Te Kūiti if they weren’t prepared to provide a letter box.
John said he wrote to the ministers after failing to hear from NZ Post.
“No call to warn me of their musings, in spite of them having a senior executive called a chief customer officer, and no doubt having someone in their headquarters tasked with managing relationships with local government,” he said in a Facebook post.
John considers NZ Post has failed on three counts.
He said it failed to explore options for keeping the post office boxes operating locally, it failed to communicate with impacted local residents, and it failed to communicate with the district’s mayor.
The 80 boxholders, many of them rural residents, have lost their post office boxes. NZ Post has said it will deliver to households, provided they put up a mailbox.
John said as a state-owned entity, NZ Post was required to meet certain standards agreed to by its shareholding ministers.
They are described in NZ Post’s Statement of Corporate Intent. The third standard reads:
“To exhibit a sense of social responsibility by having regard to the interests of the community in which it operates.”
John said there had been no reply from the ministers this week, but he didn’t expect one till next week.
“I worry about what’s happening to rural New Zealand, with these things just chipping away, reducing services,” he said. “Mail is one. I mean mail is abysmal in Te Kūiti and all over the place at the moment.
“I used to chair the state enterprise committee at parliament and NZ Post used to report to us. These state-owned enterprises have three key objectives and one of them is to look after the customers and communities that they work with. I don’t believe New Zealand Post is fulfilling its objective in No 3 there.
“I think the people of Benneydale have been really let down. NZ Post has abandoned residents and made a hurried decision without considering the interests of the community. It has not met the standard expressed in its statement of corporate intent.”
