Bondi heritage stamped out

COMMENT BY PAUL PAECH

Bondi Beach is again the focus of a battle against encroachment on another valuable local and public asset.

When word leaked out last year that a businessman had, by hardly lifting a finger, made a cool $15million profit by flipping an option to purchase Bondi’s cute little Hall Street Post Office, it looked like someone had pulled a swiftie.

Australia Post was very quick to reassure everyone that the deal was dependent on a future purchaser finding space nearby where the “essential services” could be carried on: Nothing to see here, move right along.

The “rare” and totally delicious building was protected by heritage controls and shouldn’t be developed, but the plans submitted to Council showed this heritage status evaporating to an optional extra.

On closer inspection, there turns out to be some serious issues around this neat little pick-and-flip deal.

Australia Post is still 100 per cent owned by the Australian Government. That means that it’s still owned by taxpayers like you and your neighbours.

Privatisation plays right into the hands of Big Money at the expense of local communities, as the unholy mess following the sell-off of Australia’s electricity systems shows, just as Sydney massive airport’s fees and the perpetually snarled roads there are a direct consequence of Macquarie Bank’s ownership.

Similarly, a closer look at Australia Post’s dealings at Bondi Beach shows it squeezing money out of a public asset to the detriment of the public.

Barely publicised in this reorganisation was Australia Post’s property division, the jewel in the crown, with thousands of centrally located buildings in towns and cities throughout the land.

More than a decade earlier when things like heritage still mattered, Canberra required Australia Post to devise a strategy for conservation of some fifty of its properties, including Bondi’s Post Office.

Amid cries of “scandal” from shocked architects and heritage aficionados, the freehold to Martin Place’s GPO was secretly flogged to a couple of Singaporean billionaires for a cool $150 million.

Sydney’s GPO sale looked for all the world like a two-fingered salute from departing CEO Ahmed Fahour: a “fuck-you” retaliation for the public outcry over his $5.6 million remuneration package that had led to his resignation. Australia Post quietly revealed later that Fahour’s departure payment was closer $11 million.

What is deeply disturbing in Australia Post’s property sell-off is the blurring of lines between public and private.

For example, Cushman & Wakefield, the international property behemoth managing AustraliaPost’s NSW property portfolio, has recently employed Mr Adam Treffry.

For 13 years previously, Mr Treffry was employed by Australia Post in the same role.

We know whose side is Mr Treffry on now, but what inside information has he brought with him? The change will be hugely beneficial for Cushman & Wakefield, at the expense of Australia Post and probably of the public purse.

Although Cushman & Wakefield’s Bondi salesperson, Anthony Bray, favours public auctions, the City Hub has found no evidence that Bondi’s Post Office was offered for sale on the open market.

If deals are done out of the public glare, no-one knows whether any figure is the best that Australia Post might have got, and that has to be the measure.

An interesting comparison is with the freehold title for the Bates Milk Bar site which carries denser zoning and direct ocean-views. This was sold at auction by Cushman & Wakefield for only $5 million more than seems already to have been extracted from the Post Office site.

Australia Post has refused to release any of the agreements around the quick $15 million profit from Bondi’s Post Office, but if Waverley Council agrees to the aggressive proposal for this key community site, a very big question mark would then hover over the amount that Australia Post (or someone else) might actually be paid for the site’s freehold.

Australia Post proudly boasts that it has contributed $7.6 million to various community projects around Australia, but compared with the $15million profit lost by the private flick in the Bondi deal, those community dollars smell like rancid PR peanuts.

All of this would be a bad look for a corporation, but it’s especially damaging for this very public Australian brand with its proud claim to be “committed to the local community,” identified continually as one of Australia Post’s four stakeholder groups.

Despite being badgered by the City Hub to comment, neither Australia Post nor Communications Minister Mitch Fifield responded to questions.

Australia Post’s CEO says that his organisation is “founded on outstanding customer and community service.” On the local evidence, Bondi’s feisty local community suggests that he’s talking through his well-heeled butt.

We say that there’s enough of a stench around the Bondi Beach Post Office deals that Communications Minister Mitch Fifield should tell Australia Post’s Group CFO Janelle Hopkins to find out whether its property deals in Bondi and elsewhere meet the Government’s – and her own corporation’s – standards of propriety.

Cheating is not something that Australians take kindly, especially if it’s done by a publicly owned organisation.