'Digital doesn't work everywhere'

Her comments come after NZ Post announced that from 29 June 2024, rural households will no longer receive Saturday parcel and newspaper deliveries.

There will be an exception for 17 delivery runs in Canterbury and the Waikato which will be phased out by June 2025 to give business customers more time to put alternative arrangements in place.

The change will also impact rural customers who are PO Box holders and currently receive deliveries through the NZ Post Box Lobby service on Saturdays.

O’Brien says the move represents a shift to online services with an assumption that face-to-face services or physical communications are not needed.

“We want to remind businesses and government that digital doesn’t work for everyone,” O’Brien told Rural News.

“Care needs to be taken to avoid digitally excluding those who don’t have access to reliable and consistent connectivity and those who may have difficulty or concerns with online connection,” she says.

According to the 2022 Federated Farmers Rural Connectivity Survey, more than half of the farmers surveyed reported internet download speeds at or less than 20 megabytes per second (Mbps).

O’Brien says the decision is likely to impact both those reliant on printed information to keep up to date and rural businesses.

“Although we understand that low volumes mean NZ Post considers the Saturday services are not commercially viable, we do need to look at the bigger picture of services to rural communities as part of the ecosystem of Primary Industry – a large contributor to our economy,” she says.

However, NZ Post chief operating officer Brendon Main says the move comes down to the commercial viability of the service.

“Today, the items delivered by NZ Post rural delivery partners on Saturday are limited to subscription newspapers, as well as some parcels,” Main says.

“We deliver very low volumes of items on these days, and it costs us more to deliver on Saturdays than we earn from the products we deliver.

“We acknowledge the effect that ceasing Saturday deliveries may have on Kiwis who live at a rural address,” he says. “This is not a decision that we have made lightly and we empathise with those who could be impacted by this change.

“These are not always easy decisions to make, and we again acknowledge the impact on rural communities.”