POAAL appears before NBN Committee

POAAL CEO Ian Kerr was invited to attend the most recent hearings of the NBN Joint Parliamentary Committee held in Melbourne. He took the opportunity to push the cause of those 464 LPOs that don't have access to Australia Post's point-of-sale network.Installing and maintaining the data connection is the major cost for the installation of EPOS at a post office. If the NBN can provide remote and rural LPOs with access to high speed data connections at a low cost, then this will reduce a significant cost barrier to installing EPOS in small LPOs."Of the 3780 post offices throughout Australia, 464 have no electronic facilities to scan bar codes, provide electronic banking, or track product on line. It’s simply the old-school pen, paper and a date stamp,” Committee Chair Rob Oakeshott MP said.POAAL pointed out that the vast majority of Licensees in these manual LPOs want EPOS so that they can grow their business, offer more services to their local communities and cement the place of the local post office as a community hub throughout regional and remote Australia.“Australia Post is a Government Business Enterprise, and with major banks using this point-of-sale technology, and with recognition that the local post office plays an important community-building role, this is an issue the committee will explore further,” Mr Oakeshott said.The Committee has asked POAAL's CEO Ian Kerr to provide further background information in relation to manual LPOs.