The cost of postage is to rise in Australia, with the price of a regular stamp going up from 70 cents to AUS$1. There will also be a choice of two delivery speeds for Australians – Regular and Priority. Auspost also have an Express service which is next business day guaranteed covering about 80% of Australian addresses.
The new Priority service offers delivery within 1-4 business days depending on the delivery destination, while the Regular service can take up to 2 business days longer than Priority. To send items via the faster Priority service Australians will need to purchase a Priority label and place it next to the stamp. The price of a Priority label will be 50 cents and can be purchased in books of 5 for AUS$2.50
In reality the old service used to be what’s now Priority, and if Australians don’t cough up the extra 50 cents they’ll in effect get the slower service for the price of the old service. In UK terms they’ve introduced 2nd Class Post.
Currently we’re not sure how this will affect letter post from the UK, but we suspect it’ll arrive by regular mail. Of course parcel post or courier services won’t be affected.
It’s worth remembering that Australia is vastly bigger than the UK, more than 31 times as vast by land area. A bigger issue is that most of Australia is open space often with little in the way of roads, as anyone that’s seen Outback Truckers on the TV will know.
The cost of a Priority Service stamp is still good value, about 48p in UK terms so despite the size of the country and the relatively slower service compared to Royal Mail.