Undermining of private rural couriers denied

Press, 1 June 1989, Page 3

Undermining of private rural couriers denied

by

PATTRICK SMELLIE

in Wellington New Zealand Post management yesterday rejected claims that atempts were being made to under-mine private rural couriers.

The Opposition spokesman for Post Office corporations, Mr Roger Maxwell, said 70 private rural mail contractors had been singled out for new employment offers by New Zealand Post.

Under the new arrangements the drivers would be employed full-time by New Zealand Post, have vehicles and uniforms supplied by them, but be allowed to continue delivering other courier items which were not competing directly with New Zealand Post. These would include milk, bread, newspapers, and parcels, but would not include letters, said the manager of delivery services for New Zealand Post, Mr Alan Hunt, yesterday.

The Dominion secretary of the Inland Mail Service Contractors’ Society, Mr Brian Plimmer, earlier accused New Zealand Post of trying to stop private rural deliveries from carrying courier items, and of picking

holes in the nationwide delivery system- run by private couriers. New Zealand Post was behaving anti-competi-tively, particularly as some of the 70 contractors involved had recently been awarded their contracts after competitive tendering, he said. Mr Hunt said, however, the corporation had always known it would have to pay too high a price for some rural delivery contracts under the tendering system.

The 70 contrctors involved were in that category and were spread throughout New Zealand. The rural delivery service network already had some gaps in it which were adequately filled by alternative arrangements. He rejected suggestions that New Zealand Post was trying to undermine the system.

Mr Plimmer said most of the carriers involved had turned down New Zealand Post’s offer of full-time employment and expected to serve out their three-year contracts with the corporation. But the corporation could use two-month termination clauses in existing contacts to end their employment by New Zealand Post sooner, he said.