Serving the Community - Everywhere

As part of our Community Service Obligations, we are committed to providing a standard letter service from and to the furthest corners of this vast nation. A uniform letter rate of 55 cents applies for standard letters. We are proud that it is still one of the cheapest postal services in the developed world.

Here are some of the stories of how we are connecting Australians.

In the far flung south

Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions have been ongoing since 1947 and Australia Post has been there every step of the way, helping the expeditioners stay in touch with their families and enabling families to send reminders of home to their loved ones.

This is part of Australia Post’s commitment to equity and access to postal communications for all Australians, no matter where they live.

Even in the coldest, driest, and windiest place on earth, where temperatures have been recorded as low as minus 89.6^oC, Australia Post, in cooperation with the Australian Antarctic Division, delivers letters and parcels to the expeditioners.

Australia Post operates official offices at the Mawson, David and Casey bases as well as Macquarie Island.

Mail for the Antarctic community is sorted, stored and loaded into containers at the Kingston Delivery Centre in Tasmania for the sea voyage south. Like all other Australians, the cost of sending a standard letter to a friend or family member working in Antarctica costs just 55 cents.

Connecting Australians wherever they live

From the Bonang High Plains in Victoria’s famous High Country to Orbost in the State’s isolated far east, one of the few constants is the regular presence of Australia Post and the fact that no matter how far your nearest neighbour or relative is, it still only costs 55 cents to send a letter.

Every week over the course of three days, Australia Post contractors service the area from Orbost, into the High Plains, across the border into New South Wales. They travel almost 1,500 kilometres delivering mail to just 113 locations.  

No posties on motorbikes here and not too many regular household delivery points either, from an old fridge used as a mail box to the Tubbut Primary School, which is the one of the most remote in Australia.

The world’s longest mail run

In some parts of Australia, our commitment means delivering mail by light plane. Australia Post subcontracts the mail run from Port Augusta in South Australia to Boulia in outback Queensland to Airlines of South Australia.

Pilot Jonathon Foote delivers and collects mail from this letterbox next to the landing strip at Cordillo Downs cattle station, in the north-east of South Australia.

The 2,600-kilometre round-trip stops in at 25 outback cattle stations and small outback towns like Birdsville and Innamincka.

The two day mail run begins at Port Augusta on Saturday morning, breaks on Sunday night at Boulia and arrives back in Port Augusta on Sunday evening. The run is believed to be the longest mail run in the world.   

Post in Rural and Regional Australia

Australia Post is well known for its special relationship with Australian rural and regional communities.  Recent activities include:

Taking Science to the Outback

Retired university science lecturer, Phill Higgins and his wife Suzanne, power up the Cessna 172 from Latrobe Valley airport in south-eastern Victoria, for their annual "travelling science class" to children in remote areas.  Read more about Phiggles The Flying Scientist sponsored by Australia Post.

Stawell Gift

Since 1995 Australia Post has been the naming rights sponsor of the Australia Post Stawell Gift which attracts more than 20,000 visitors to the Grampians region of Victoria each year, generating around $1.5 million for the local economy. The 2008 Stawell Gift carnival was on from 21-24 March.

CSO Commitments:

• Read about Post's Community Service Obligations

Australia Post is a Patron of:

• The Regional Achievement and Community Awards in Victoria and Tasmania