Post Mortem: Four Corners Australia Post / Christine Holgate autopsy turns up cool on privatisation issue

“Post Mortem” (Four Corners, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 28 June 2021)

Posited as an investigation into the recent history and culture of Australia Post, and the actions that took place that led to the departure of Australia Post CEO Christine Holgate, this Four Corners report ends up as simply a series of claims and counter-claims from which viewers will learn little other than that Australia Post has long been in the Liberal / National coalition government’s target sights for privatisation and will continue to be such a target. The bulk of the report is in the form of excerpts from several interviews made by reporter Michael Brissenden with key protagonist Holgate herself and others including the current Federal Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts Paul Fletcher.

The report initially begins with the supposed scandal surrounding Holgate’s gifts of Cartier watches totalling $12,000 to senior Australia Post executives, the uproar that resulted (which both the ALP and the Coalition government exploited for their own ends) and Holgate’s forced departure; it then backtracks into following the recent history of Australia Post and its organisation and culture from the time Ahmed Fahour became Australia Post CEO in 2010 and began restructuring its business. Along the way from the time Fahour joined Australia Post, left and was replaced by Holgate, to Holgate herself having to leave, viewers get a little insight into Fahour and Holgate’s respective leadership styles and their vision for Australia Post, and how Holgate’s plans for the organisation came up against the Federal Government’s ultimate goal for the postal service.

One might have expected that Four Corners, being part of a government-run organisation whose budget has steadily been run down by successive Coalition governments, might have come out swinging against the Federal government’s privatisation agenda or the Boston Consulting Group’s recommendations that Australia Post be subjected to break-up and privatisation moves but the report does no such thing. Brissenden does not canvass (or appear to) any opinions among Licensed Postal Offices (private businesses that operate postal services under contract to Australia Post; they may operate purely as post offices or combine the functions with another line of business, such as running a newsagency or general store) or Australia Post employees, apart from a former AP executive, on the issue of privatisation or on what they think of Holgate. (My understanding is that the LPOs support her.) Instead the report ends up merely parroting a polemical series of arguments, painting Australia Post as an organisation with a chaotic management culture, that go nowhere. The conclusion to the report, if any can be said to exist, is deliberately left open-ended.

The curious thing is that the one group that has come out in favour of keeping Australia Post as a government-run institution, the Australian Citizens’ Party, was portrayed in the Four Corners report as a “fringe” party (read: a bunch of crackpot conspiracy theorists) supportive of the views of Lyndon LaRouche, described in the report as “anti-Semitic, a racist and a conspiracy theorist” and nothing more. That in itself might tell us more about the Four Corners program and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation than it does about the Australian Citizens’ Party: that despite the very real danger of privatisation facing the ABC itself, the organisation dares not support other government institutions also facing privatisation and the loss of employment – not to mention the devastation rural communities would face without Australia Post, the ABC and other government agencies – it would lead to.

Whatever happened to so-called investigative journalism and advocating for Aussie battlers at the ABC? If one were to judge from the manner of this Four Corners report, real investigative journalism on behalf of defending the powerless no longer exists there.