26/04/2026
An open letter to Kristy McBain MP Member for Monaro.
Cobargo Post Office
57 Princes Highway
Cobargo NSW 2550
Ph: 0401 398 141
[email protected]
Wednesday, 16 April 2026
The Hon Kristy McBain MP
Member for Monaro
Subject: Future of the Cobargo Post Office
Dear Ms McBain,
My name is David Wilson, and I am the Licensee of the Cobargo Post Office. I have operated this outlet for over ten years, serving a close-knit rural community that includes elderly residents, farming families, small businesses, families, vulnerable community members, and people living in surrounding remote areas.
Cobargo is a community that values its independence and its local services deeply. It is also a community that is still rebuilding. More than five years after the devastating bushfires of 2019 and 2020, many local resources and services have not fully returned. In that context, the Post Office carries a weight that goes beyond what a Post Office would carry in a normal town. It is one of the services people depend on, and one of the services that held firm when so much else was disrupted.
The nearest alternative Corporate Post Office is 40 kilometres away. For elderly residents, farmers managing large properties, and community members with limited transport, that distance is a genuine barrier to access.
What I am seeing at the outlet level is a pattern of Australia Post change that, taken together, is working against the long-term sustainability of this outlet. Banking functionality through Bank@Post has become more limited. BillPay customers are declining. Western Union services are being lost, which will directly affect community members who rely on international money transfer. Government-linked services are fewer. Retail is no longer structurally supported in the way it once was. And the uncertainty around Australia Post agreement structures and fixed-term arrangements makes it extremely difficult to plan ahead or make confident decisions about the future of the business.
The combined effect is that the outlet is not growing despite the clear and ongoing need it serves. That is not how a healthy, supported essential service should look.
I want to be direct about something. I am at retiring age. I have invested over ten years of my working life into this Post Office, I love the Cobargo community, and what concerns me greatly is that the current uncertainty is undermining the value of that investment. If I cannot present a prospective buyer with a clear picture of what this business will look like, what services it will carry, and what agreement structures will apply, then the ability to sell the outlet and maintain continuity of service for this community is genuinely at risk. That is not a personal complaint. It is a practical problem with a community consequence.
Australia Post has not, in my experience, communicated fully and clearly to licensees about its future direction. Licensees are being asked to absorb uncertainty without the information needed to respond to it. That is not a reasonable position to put essential community service providers in.
This is not simply a commercial concern. It is a question of whether a Government Business Enterprise is meeting its obligations to the communities it is meant to serve, and whether the people who deliver those services at the local level are being treated with basic fairness.
I would respectfully ask that you seek a formal briefing from Australia Post on the future of the licensed Post Office network, raise this issue in Parliament on behalf of communities like Cobargo that depend on local access to essential services, write to the responsible Minister requesting that Australia Post be directed to communicate clearly with licensees about future service and agreement structures, advocate for the protection of local Post Offices as essential community infrastructure, and visit our Post Office to see firsthand the role it plays in this still-recovering community.
I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you directly.
Yours sincerely,
David Wilson and Kyle Moser
Licensees
Cobargo Post Office
0401 398 141
[email protected]
