September 27, 2012
Member for Maranoa Bruce Scott has gone in to bat for the residents of Blackbutt and Benarkin about their very unlucky postcode: 4306.
Speaking during an adjournment debate in Federal Parliament last week, Mr Scott pointed out that not only did the numbers add up to unlucky 13, but residents were also unlucky enough to have the same postcode as the Ipswich-Amberley area, two hours away and in a totally unrelated region.
This not only affects local residents’ mail deliveries, it also affects their insurance premiums, crime statistics, Centrelink transactions and work visas.
“They are two totally distinct regions separated by distance,” Mr Scott said.
“They do not share a boundary. There are 57 localities that share the same postcode as Ipswich. Australia Post maintains that postcodes are for mail-sorting purposes only and it has no control over how postcode data is applied by other agencies, including other government agencies.
“Due to the fact that Ipswich-Amberley 4306 is described as a metropolitan region and Blackbutt-Benarkin region is rural, the erroneous allocation has resulted in a diverse and significant range of detrimental outcomes for the Blackbutt-Benarkin region in the South Burnett in my electorate.
“For instance, Centrelink considers Blackbutt to be a suburb of Ipswich and requires residents to travel 130km to transact Centrelink business in lieu of a 60km trip to Kingaroy.
“Farming enterprises in the Blackbutt-Benarkin region employ backpackers that are a very important part of their seasonal workforce. If these enterprises want backpackers to extend their 12-month visas, they are unable to effect this because the region is considered metropolitan instead of rural, due to its having the duplicated Ipswich postcode.
“Another example is insurance for home contents and motor vehicle insurance, which are based on postcodes. This greatly disadvantages Blackbutt and Benarkin residents. Premium quote requests for neighbouring towns using the same property conditions attract quotes of at least $150 less each time.
“The Blackbutt-Benarkin region does not have the perceived threat risk on many levels associated with the Ipswich region — and that is not to take away from Ipswich as a community.
“In efforts to obtain a better deal for the Blackbutt-Benarkin residents and after consulting Australia Post, I wrote to the Financial Ombudsman Service, the Insurance Council of Australia, and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, all of whom advised of their powerlessness to influence insurance companies or to effect change.
“Blackbutt was reported to have the highest drug-related problem in the greater area. Again, this was based on postcodes and with Blackbutt having the same postcode as Ipswich, the Blackbutt region was unfairly maligned …
“The shared postcodes are also impacting on the length of time taken to receive mail …
“My proposed fix is to change the Blackbutt postcode from 4306 to 4616, because 4616 is unallocated. It is a logical choice, because the adjoining postcodes are Nanango 4615 and Yarraman 4614.
“I believe there needs to be a postcode review to allocate unique postcodes to towns with a licensed Australia Post office or postal agency which currently share a postcode with a geographically separate region.
“I have been active in raising awareness of this issue for two years. Not supporting a change of postcode for the Blackbutt-Benarkin area from 4306 to 4616 is abetting many Federal, State and other department agencies to disadvantage citizens of this region.”
