A proposal to cut deliveries and physical outlets has some worried about those who will be left behind, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in today’s extract from The Bulletin.

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The dying days of the post

When was the last time you got a letter? Scratch that, when was the last time you got a letter you actually wanted? The days of the postal service have been numbered for some time, and now NZ Post is considering taking a sizeable knife to the network in the not-to-distant future. As reported by RNZ’s Susan Edmonds, the proposal by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) would see the “deed of understanding” with NZ Post adjusted for the first time in 11 years. It could mean NZ Post will only be required to deliver to urban areas a minimum of twice a week and rural areas three times a week, though NZ Post would still be able to make operational decisions.

Speaking to Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan, MBIE’s James Hartley said that in urban areas, the average post box gets about two letters a week and overall use had declined dramatically in recent years. “Only about 1% of letters are sent by individuals [as opposed to businesses or government services],” said Hartley. “In 2002, one billion letters went through the postal system. It’s now down to about 180 million.”

Consultation is open until December 10.

Who could be left behind?

Hartley, in his interview on Newstalk ZB, acknowledged there would be concern and said that “anecdotally” some communities, especially in rural areas and among the elderly, still rely on the mail service. Under the proposal, the number of “points of presence” for NZ Post would drop from 880 down to 500, with a possible further step down to 400 over time.

Marie Fitzpatrick of the Rural Women New Zealand group told Farmers Weekly that the proposal would impact isolated communities and NZ Post was making an assumption people would be able to drive to find services. “The proposal is silent on any detail, it does not give any indication on where those cuts will happen,” she said. The group would be preparing a submission to counter the move, adding that it wants an assurance NZ Post will adhere to the social responsibility principles as a state-owned enterprise.

In an excellent feature for The Spinoff published earlier this year, Rachel Judkins reported on the varied ways in which rural livers rely on the postal service. It’s not just for letters, said farmer Mairi Whittle, but for papers, parcels and pantry items. “Mondays and Thursdays I get bread and milk in the mail,” she explained. “It’s just so handy. You can kind of get by if you’ve got bread and milk.”

Money, money, money

As noted above, NZ Post is a state-owned enterprise. That means that, while owned by the government, it is not funded by the government and ultimately acts to turn a profit. In September, reported Jem Traylen at BusinessDesk (paywalled), NZ Post made a loss of $14m for the 2024 financial year which the company described as “fully” in line with expectations and was an improvement of $42m on the previous year. It was confident it could return to profitability in the next 12 months. “The year also saw an increase of $126m in our enterprise valuation,” said NZ Post at the time. “We were pleased to return a $100m dividend to the government as shareholder in May 2024, and expect to pay further dividends to the shareholder as the company returns to consistent profitability.”

With the decline in mail volume, the company is aiming to turn the business around through investment in new processing facilities and the acquisition of competing brands. But, with less mail, there has also had to be price increases and redundancies to keep the lights on.

Keeping with the times

As MBIE’s James Hartley mentioned, very few letters these days actually come from individuals senders. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I only ever get a “letter” when it’s my birthday (and often it comes several days late, anyway). Liam van Eeden, writing for Re:News in March, looked at this exact issue in a piece quite simply titled: “why tf do important documents only get sent through the post?”. He went on to ask why some of the mail we do still receive can’t just be sent via email. Auckland University IT lecturer Farkhondeh Hassandoust told Re:News that while having an email alternative is helpful, for some people, the postal service remained crucial. “It’s very important to keep in mind that older people may not have access to proper digital tools, and prefer postal mail.”

The same issue has been raised in recent years around banking, with many smaller communities losing access to physical outlets in favour of online services. Age Concern told RNZ in February that while the closure of bank outlets was inevitable, people needed to time to understand the digital shift. The Reserve Bank said in May it would help make cash more accessible for isolated communities and iwi, reported Te Ao Māori News, while the country’s five largest banks confirmed they would extend a commitment not to close regional branches for the next three years.

Trump spent time in his old stomping ground, while Harris picked up yet another major celebrity endorsement, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund in this extract from The Bulletin.

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A Trump homecoming in true blue New York

Given it’s a short week and not a lot tends to happen over a long weekend, I thought we’d start things off by looking at the impending US election. In just over a week, polls will close in the presidential race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, setting the course for the next four years of global politics. Yesterday saw Trump appear before thousands at New York’s Madison Square Garden, for what was something of a homecoming rally. As The Guardian reported, the former president’s speech (which has been somewhat overshadowed by a comedian’s offensive jokes) included the expected off-beat tangents and focused largely on immigration along with attacks on not only his opponent, but what he has called the “enemy within” – those he views as having wronged or betrayed him in the past. Trump has virtually no chance of winning New York (polls have him about 15 points behind Harris), but has made several detours away from swing states over his campaign. One Trump backer put that down to the spectacle of an appearance at the iconic New York arena. “It just goes to show ya that he has a bigger following of any man that has ever lived,” they said. Critics have called it a vanity rally.

Writing for The Post, Andrea Vance, who is in New York, noted that Trump’s team are relying on the rally to reach audiences far outside of New York. But, Vance added, there is also an unpleasant parallel for the former president. Trump has been fighting off claims from his former chief of staff that he fits the definition of a fascist and, in 1939, thousands of pro-Nazi sympathisers packed in the Garden for rallies in the lead up to World War II. As CNN reported, Democrats projected messages on the exterior of Madison Square Garden during the rally that “Trump is Unhinged” and “Trump praised Hitler”.

Celebrity power

Meanwhile, vice president Kamala Harris has been in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania. It’s the largest of the battlegrounds and, as NPR explains, could dictate who nudges ahead on election night. It’s an intriguingly divided electorate, part of the reason both candidates have spent substantial time on the ground there. As The Guardian reported, Harris’s speech over the weekend continued to frame the election as a choice between two “extremely different visions” for the country, while taking aim at the “fear and divisiveness” that she said had been caused by Trump.

Earlier in the weekend, Harris was joined by pop superstar Beyonce at a rally in Texas. The singer said she was at the rally not as a celebrity or politician, reported AP, but as a “mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in, a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies, a world where we’re not divided”. Beyonce is the latest in a long list of high profile endorsements for Harris, including from Taylor Swift and Oprah. In a piece for Vox, it was noted that while celebrity endorsements may not do a lot to sway an election, Beyonce’s star power brings with it wide reach and influence. At the very least, it could convince a large number of people to register to vote – especially among demographics core to the Harris campaign.

The podcast election

While the two presidential contenders are continuing to host large rallies, one traditional medium of campaigning has been largely abandoned – that being the mainstream media. Trump shunned the traditional pre-election interview with 60 minutes, for example, but over the weekend appeared for a three-hour sit down with prominent podcaster Joe Rogan (an interview that was, claimed CNN, littered with at least 32 unfounded and unchecked claims). The fact he made inaccurate comments isn’t new, nor is the fact that weren’t picked up in real time. But the decision to speak with alternative media outlets is relatively novel, leading some to claim this as the podcast election.

This comment by Brady Brickner-Wood in the New Yorker earlier this month nicely sums up, I think, the appeal for candidates in choosing to speak with alternative media. “When a public figure sits across from a podcast host to embark on a purportedly shapeless, stream-of-consciousness chat suffused with crude jokes and senseless tangents, an odd alchemy occurs: the speakers begin to sound like pals bantering at a pre-game, with the listener as a silent confidant.”

Harris, too, has opted to give interviews with outlets outside of the mainstream press, such as on Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy – a show with a predominantly female audience. As the AP explained, few outlets offer the opportunity to zero in on an audience better than podcasts.

The New Zealand angle

It’s easy to think that the US election doesn’t matter for us down in little old New Zealand. But former National Party leader, and US politics obsessive, Todd Muller told The Spinoff’s Toby Manhire on a special edition of Gone by Lunchtime, that’s the wrong way to think about it. “What you want from a New Zealand perspective is consistent, predictable leadership from America,” he said. “My personal view is that Trump, from a foreign policy perspective, is just too unpredictable. You just do not know what he’s going to say or do on any given day.”

On Trump as a candidate, Muller said that while most New Zealanders find his personal approach to politics “aggressive”, many of his American supporters like what he represents – the anti-establishment.

Muller’s old boss, John Key, agreed. In a recent interview with ThreeNews’s Samantha Hayes (that also saw the ex-PM show off his new helicopter), Key said Trump’s popularity was symptomatic of “middle America… feeling left behind and feeling unfairly treated”. But while Key believed that Trump’s “America First” views wouldn’t benefit New Zealand all that much, he still thought that “on balance” he would be better for the economy. “He’s likely to embrace a bit more market. He’s likely to have less red tape and he’s certainly going to have lower taxes. So that bit is good.”