Plan for P.O. ‘at odds’

Press, 2 June 1986, Page 10

Plan for P.O. ‘at odds’

PA Wellintton

Government plans for corporatising the Post Office are at odds with a Labour caucus resolution on State restructuring, said the Opposition Post Office spokesman, Mr Roger Maxwell.

It would take intervention from the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, and the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas, to make corporatisation a reality, Mr Maxwell said. Both men were absent from the caucus meeting which resolved that the proposed reforms would have to provide continuing public debate on objectives, with open information to the public.

The caucus also required that the new structures recognise and accept that social service must be a clearly identified and an integral part of their accounting and reporting system, and not necessarily assessed against the user-pays principle.

Mr Maxwell said the resolutions would make “proceeding to corporatise very difficult.” “Existing corporate structures refrain from publishing details of their operation for reasons of commercial sensitivity,” he said.

The objectives of the resolution would not be able to be met under corporatisation.

“There is a view within the Post Office that efficiency improvements can be achieved without corporatisation,” he said.

That view had carried weight in caucus which was now seeking to “force the Cabinet to backtrack on previous decisions.”