"That ICPA QLD lobby Department of Education (DOE) to develop a policy with Schools of Distance Education to utilise Australia Post Express services for geographically isolated distance education school materials delivery during severe weather events."
This motion is in response to the feedback from Australia Post to a motion at Federal Conference in 2022 regarding the prioritised delivery of distance education school materials during mail disruptions, such as a natural disaster. It was highlighted though that in an extreme weather event, Express Post items are amongst the first delivered and therefore it was recommended that the Express Post service be utilised to ensure educational items are expedited through the network in these circumstances. The recent North Queensland Flooding and Monsoon event disrupted the delivery of geographically isolated distance education school materials for weeks and in some cases months. Restricted road and airstrip access also compounded this issue for a number of families so that when mail services finally resumed mail contractors struggled to deliver the backlog of mail. If the DOE has a policy with schools of distance education to utilise Australia Post Express services, which we assume would be at a significantly higher cost to these schools, during severe weather events this would assist getting the mail to geographically isolated distance education students as quickly as possible.
