renth

It's all fun and games until a dog tears your scrotum open (true story, happened to me!)

ozzieeagle

Ouch.... thats an unusual one ! On the delivery side I've only been a Parcel driver, up till early 2001.... Back in the early days and the only incident worth mentioning. There was a major domestic between islanders in the middle of the street, in the commission area of Glenroy .. I drove past slowly and noticed the lady involved had blood on her and the bloke about 40 meters back had a knife in his hand screaming out all kinds of threats... So I opened up the passenger door from inside and told her to jump in... She bled all over the parcels... I drove her to the local medical center with the Partner(?) chasing us down the road.

Meter reading though.... plenty of dog incidents in my 15 + years from 1980 to late 95... Most interesting one was in the early days. They used to have asbestos covers over the gas meters back then...not a big deal, however they had plenty of holes in them and I couldn't read the meter through the inspection hole and had to lift it off.... Out comes a bloody bee swarm.... I reckon I ran 100 meters in less than 15 seconds with bees stinging me most of the way. Got 10 bee stings out of that one... carried on working instead of phoning in sick because I was new to the job.... Still had the UK worth ethic back then, much to my personal cost.

Amazulu

Sure, but I was referring to the fact that postal services are generally losing money all over the world (have a look how much the US Postal Service has been losing for instance) and that they should not be subsidised by the taxpayer

You also need to look at delivery and post offices as different entities. The latter still has many official government, state, financial duties and should remain in public ownership IMO. As for the delivery arm - sell it off and let private enterprise make it work in a cost-effective manner. It's not that long ago that the post office controlled nearly all telecoms - now you couldn't imagine them being one and the same

As for Qantas, I don't really care who owns it. The concept of national airlines went out the window when most were privatised. Why should Qantas be the 'national airline'? Why not Virgin? The same with BA in the UK. Why not Virgin Atlantic?

the troubadour

Quite correct essential services certainly should remain in government hands.

ozzieeagle

Postal delivery arms have a major role to play in the security of nations believe it or not..... There is one major factor as to why Governments are unwilling to let them go. Right up there with customs and border control and internal security.

Amazulu

I'll take your word for it but they should make a profit. If no profit then they should be sold as the taxpayer must not subsidise them