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Speaker 1: As rare as students in class, potentially mail boxes and

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Speaker 1: post offices. The Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment is

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Speaker 1: proposing New Zealand post mail deliveries be cut to twice

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Speaker 1: a week. This is in towns and cities, rural areas

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Speaker 1: from five times weekly down to three, and reducing the

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Speaker 1: minimum number of postal shops from eight hundred and eighty

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Speaker 1: to five hundred. It says people are sending eight hundred

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Speaker 1: and thirteen million fewer male items than they were twenty

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Speaker 1: years ago. Maury Fitzpatrick is with Rural Women New Zealand.

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Speaker 1: She's the chief executive. She's with us Live this morning.

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Speaker 1: Good morning, Good morning Roan Marie. Nice to have you

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Speaker 1: on the show. You're obviously not on board with this.

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Speaker 2: That's a fair assessment. We're pretty still at the depth

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Speaker 2: of these cuts and it's really disappointing that New Zealand

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Speaker 2: posts abandoning its quality of service and putting commercial violulity

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Speaker 2: ahead at the needs of rural New Zealanders.

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Speaker 1: What is so crucial for rural kiwis that you need

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Speaker 1: five times a week instead of three.

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Speaker 2: Well, if it starters, there's an assumption that we do

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Speaker 2: everything online and for you and I who live in

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Speaker 2: a city, that's probably true. But in rural communities not

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Speaker 2: everybody has access to reliable, steady internet, or that internet

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Speaker 2: can be extortionately expensive if you have to result the

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Speaker 2: satellite or other things like that. So for some more

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Speaker 2: vulnerable rural communities, that really really has a significant impact

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Speaker 2: dropping from five days to two. New Zealand Posts recently

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Speaker 2: dropped from six days to five in rural communities and

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Speaker 2: that has already had a profound impact on those communities.

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Speaker 1: What impact has it had? What does it meant to people?

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Speaker 2: Well star, does people get more than just their post?

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Speaker 2: I think this consultation document focuses on male specifically and

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Speaker 2: excludes career parcels and things like that that New Zealand

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Speaker 2: Post delivers through its Career Post network. If you live rurally,

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Speaker 2: that happens in the same van, so it's not like

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Speaker 2: the Post is delivering my mail here in Wellington and

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Speaker 2: then I get my career packages every day regardless. Career

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Speaker 2: packages contain your insulin or important medication or important medication

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Speaker 2: for your animals if you're on a farm, for example,

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Speaker 2: having that cut to three days a week can be

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Speaker 2: really significant.

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Speaker 1: But wouldn't you just order more earlier.

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Speaker 2: Probably if he was looking about five days to sit

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Speaker 2: six days to five, but you know five days down

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Speaker 2: to three, and you know there's a detail, and that's

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Speaker 2: not necessarily proposing to be alternative days. It could be

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Speaker 2: consecutive days and then nothing for a week.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, I have sympathy for you because and for

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Speaker 1: rural people because my family, some of my family lives

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Speaker 1: really and they chew my ear off about this. But

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Speaker 1: I just think if it's going to be that as

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Speaker 1: expensive as they say it is to maintain these services,

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Speaker 1: and it's kind of a no brainer, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: well it is.

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Speaker 2: And this is a state owned enterprise the State Owned

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Speaker 2: Enterprises Act, So this proposal is consulting on the deed

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Speaker 2: of understanding. But the state owned Enterprises has a number

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Speaker 2: of principles. One is that they need to be commercially viable, correct,

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Speaker 2: But there are other parts of those principles which are

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Speaker 2: ensure that these day don't enterprises exhibit a sense of

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Speaker 2: social responsibility and have a regard to the interests of

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Speaker 2: the community in which it's creating. And we just want

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Speaker 2: the government to consider the needs of rural communities as

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Speaker 2: well as the commercial viability of this organization and we

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Speaker 2: think there's a way to balance that better than this

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Speaker 2: proposal does.

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Speaker 1: Marie, thank you very much for your call. I can

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Speaker 1: see we're getting lots of feedback on this funne already.

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Speaker 1: Marie Fitzpatrick, the Royal Women, Sorry Rural Women, New Zealand

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Speaker 1: Chief executive. For more from early edition with Ryan Bridge.

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Speaker 1: Listen live to News Talks it be from five am weekdays,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.