Photo of Australia Post loading dock sparks fury: 'Piss poor'

Pictures taken outside an Australia Post office in regional NSW caused some concern for packages being stolen.

The images were shared to a Facebook group this week and show several parcels outside the Rutherford post office, seemingly out the back.

"Great to see everyone's freight is safe," the man who shared the photos to Facebook said.

"Cameras or not why would you leave anything out the back where people can just walk up and take them?"

The man who shared the photos to Facebook said in the comments the pictures were taken in a "massive" car park.

Many in the comments were dismayed by the display of packages outside, while one person suggested perhaps the post office didn't have enough space inside.

One person described the display as "piss poor".

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Australia Post issues apology

In a statement to Yahoo News Australia, Australia Post said leaving parcels outside does not meet the high standards the company has, despite there being video surveillance of the packages at the Rutherford Post Office.

"We apologise to our customers in the area," the Australia Post spokesperson confirmed.

"All parcels have now been moved inside, and we are working with the licensee to manage the increasing number of parcels at this site."

The spokesperson also revealed there has been an increase of parcels at the post office.

"Our people are working hard to process a record number of parcels for our customers during this busy period, and the increased volume at Rutherford is due to a high number of returned deliveries, which occurs when there is nobody home to accept the parcel.

"We encourage our customers to download the Australia Post mobile app, which allows customers to choose the best place to receive their parcels including any of the free 24/7 Parcel Lockers in more than 1000 locations around Australia, including one at Rutherford."

The Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales made November the biggest month for online shopping in Australia, according to Australia Post.

Throughout the sales period, 21 million parcels were delivered by Australia Post across the country.

The Covid pandemic was the catalyst for the boom in online shopping and lockdowns have resulted in some delays for Australia Post.

“We’re working hard in what’s still a challenging environment, with our delivery teams managing to get almost a million parcels a day to front doors across NSW alone on December 1 and December 2," Australia Post General Manager, Parcel & Express Services Ben Franzi said.

"We’ve got our delivery people and processing around the country working around the clock, as we head into a busy Christmas.”

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