NZ Post ,[1] shortened from New Zealand Post, is a state-owned enterprise responsible for providing most postal services in New Zealand. The New Zealand Post Office, a government agency, provided postal, banking, and telecommunications services in New Zealand until 1987. By the 1980s, however, economic difficulties made the government reconsider how it delivered postal services. For example, in 1987–1988, the postal division lost NZ$50 million.[2] In 1985, the Labour Party government under Prime Minister David Lange launched a review, led by New Zealand Motor Corporation CEO Roy Mason and KPMG New Zealand Chairman Michael Morris, to find solutions to the Post Office's problems. In its final report, the team recommended transforming the New Zealand Post Office into three state-owned enterprises. The government in 1986 decided to follow the Mason-Morris review's recommendations, and passed through parliament the State-Owned Enterprises Act, which corporatised several government agencies into state-owned enterprises.[3][4] The Post Office's corporatisation was then completed with the 1987 passage of the Postal Services Act.[2][5] The two acts broke up the New Zealand Post Office into three corporations: the postal service firm New Zealand Post Limited, the savings bank Post Office Bank Limited, later rebranded as PostBank, and the telecommunications company Telecom New Zealand Limited. Today, only NZ Post remains a state-owned enterprise, as PostBank and Telecom were privatised in 1989 and 1990, respectively.[6]
In its first year of operation, New Zealand Post turned the losses of previous years into a NZ$72 million profit.[7]
A year after the 1987 Post Office Act, the Lange Government declared its plan to fully privatise the post.[7] To prepare for privatisation, it decided to gradually reduce NZ Post's monopoly. When it was corporatised in 1987, New Zealand Post had a monopoly for mail up to 500 grams and NZ$1.75 value. This was first reduced to $1.35, then $1, and finally 80 cents. The government also let NZ Post downsize by closing a third of its locations. In 1991–1992, another review came out in support of the government's privatisation plan. However, by the end of 1993 the government abandoned its plan because of public opposition.[2]
New Zealand Post began its life with 1,244 post offices, later rebranded as PostShops, of which 906 were full post offices and 338 were postal agencies. On 5 February 1988, 581 post offices or bank branches were downsized or closed,[8] after government subsidies expired. As of March 1998, there were 297 PostShops and 705 Post Centres. However, there are now more outlets than before corporatisation, with 2,945 other retailers of postage stamps.
There was a reduction in the "real" price of postage, with a nominal drop of the standard letter postage rate from 45 cents to 40 cents in 1996, and restoration of the 45 cent rate in 2004. Since then the cost has risen to 50 cents in 2007, to 60 cents in 2010, to 70 cents in 2012, to 80 cents in 2014, to $1 in 2016, to $1.20 in 2018, to $1.30 in 2019, to $1.40 in 2020, to $1.50 in 2021, to $1.70 in 2022, to $2.00 in 2023 and $2.30 in 2024, amidst significant declines in mail volumes.
Regulation
The Lange government's Postal Services Act 1987 reduced the monopoly of New Zealand Post to a limit of $1.75 and 500 grams. It was gradually reduced to 80 cents in December 1991 until the 1998 legislation took effect.
The Postal Services Act 1998, passed by a National-New Zealand First coalition government, repealed the 1987 Act. The new law provides for any person to become a registered postal operator by applying to the Ministry of Economic Development (now Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment). Registration as a postal operator is compulsory for letters with postage less than 80 cents. Despite the Act, government regulation of the company still requires it to maintain certain minimum service levels, such as frequency of delivery.
New Zealand Post's exclusive right to be the 'sole operator' under the Act for the purposes of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) expired on 1 April 2003. For practical purposes, this meant another postal operator could theoretically issue stamps identified simply as 'New Zealand' with UPU membership. At around the same time, New Zealand Post adopted a fern-shaped identifying mark on its postage stamps, to be used on the majority of its future issues. As of 2024, New Zealand Post is one of three mail delivery providers in New Zealand to issue stamps, the others being its primary postal competitor DX Mail and the significantly smaller Whitestone Post.[9]
Since 1998, NZ Post has been legally obliged to deliver six days a week. However, in 2013, the company outlined a plan to reduce this to three, in the wake of falling mail volumes.
Operations
Mail and courier services
In 1989, New Zealand Post established CourierPost, a nationwide courier company designed to protect the company's parcel business from private competition. In 1991 it purchased Speedlink Parcels, formerly run by the New Zealand Railways when it was sold during privatisation. By 1998 CourierPost had become the number one player in the express courier market.[14]
In 1999, New Zealand Post launched a 50:50 joint operation with Blue Star. The new brand – Books and More – combined bookshop operations with the more traditional PostShop services. After acquiring 100% of the company in 2004 (by this stage the other 50% had been owned by WH Smith, owner of Whitcoulls bookshops) the entire operation was eventually sold to Paper Plus in 2005 and by 2006 all had been re-branded as Take Note.[15][16]
Other NZ postal operators
Other operators in the privatised New Zealand postal market include:
See also
- Postcodes in New Zealand
- Royal Mail
- Canada Post
- Australia Post
- List of national postal services
External links
- NZ Post
- Postal Policy at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
- Kiwibank Limited
- NZ Post Collectables
References
- New Zealand Post Group www.nzpost.co.nz, retrieved 2021-08-30^
- Robert Campbell. Politics of Postal Transformation: Modernizing Postal Systems in the Electronic and Global World McGill-Queen's University Press, 13 March 2002^
- State-Owned Enterprises Act 1986 18 December 1986, retrieved 5 April 2017^