Our delivery policy
As part of our Community Service Obligations (CSO), Australia Post is required to provide a letter service which is reasonably accessible to all people in Australia on an equitable basis, wherever they reside or carry on business. This is achieved by delivery to residential and business street addresses, roadside delivery points, Post Offices and Post Office Box addresses across Australia.
While we try our best to deliver to the addressed property, mail delivery arrangements can vary depending on the size and needs of each community. Factors which may limit our ability to deliver include the safety of our people, the actual location and the cost of providing the service.
If we cannot deliver directly to the property, mail can be collected from the nearest Post Office, a Post Office Box (may be provided at a reduced rate1) or the nearest delivery point on an existing mail run (e.g. a group of letterboxes at an intersection on the route).
Mail zoning
Zoning is based on several variables, including whether there’s a local street delivery contract in the area, the addresses and distances that the contract covers, and how cost effective it would be to extend that contract.
Street delivery
Most of our delivery points are letterboxes that are located on a residential or business property at the street boundary and serviced by “street delivery”. Addresses zoned as "street delivery" should be getting delivery attempts to the door for items requiring a signature, assuming there are no access issues.
Roadside delivery
In medium to low population density areas, letterboxes may be at a centralised location, such as at the end of an unsealed road or grouped on a main road, or where suitable to the boundary of the property. Delivery to these locations will depend on various factors, such as the distance from the delivery centre, unsafe roads and lack of available contractors in the area.
These areas are serviced by “roadside delivery”, which typically doesn’t include service to the door. Letters and parcels will usually be delivered into your letterbox if they fit and don’t require a signature for delivery, otherwise we will leave a card with collection details. Please ensure your letterbox is secure and protects the mail from weather.
Change your delivery arrangement
If you would like to update your delivery arrangement, for instance requesting roadside delivery service in a new area, or switching to street delivery, you’ll need to submit a written request.
Address your request to the manager of your local delivery centre, who will determine if the change is viable and contact you to let you know the outcome. If you do not know the address of your local delivery centre, please contact us on 13 7678.
If there’s widespread support to change mail delivery arrangements within a community,2 we’ll run a mail poll where everyone in the community can have their say. If more than 50 per cent of residents vote for the change, and the volume of mail received each day is sufficient, we’ll take steps to change mail delivery arrangements as required.
Safe Drop
In some cases, we can leave parcels in a safe place at your address if you’re not home. If you would like to grant us the authority to do this, set up Safe Drop as your delivery preference through MyPost or call us on 13 7678 to get started.
1 The reduced rate applies where we do not provide mail delivery to a customer’s address (residential or business). It will not apply where that customer (a) resides on a houseboat or other water vessel, or (b) where the customer's address (residential or business) is located on a private road (such as caravan park, gated community, retirement village or defence force barracks etc).
2 A representative number is at least 25 per cent of eligible households in the area where the change is proposed. For example, if the change is likely to affect several neighbouring streets where the total number of households is 100, at least 25 of those households would need to demonstrate support for a poll. Should there be sufficient support for a poll to be conducted, we will only proceed if the total volume of mail being collected over-the-counter for those eligible households is on average greater than 220 articles per day and 50% or more of residences vote ‘yes’ to receive a street delivery service. As the polling size varies, we will determine this on a case-by-case basis. Customers failing to respond to the mail poll will be deemed as satisfied with the current service and a ‘no’ vote will be recorded.
