Also thanks to the lady from the dentist's office who brought me orange juice.

Some of the footpaths in Merimbula are in a shocking state and the council needs to take responsibility.

I know there have been a few incidents of footpath injury in Merimbula.

If only outgoing Australia Post boss Ahmed Fahour had practised, in our rural/regional neck of the woods, what he preached in his swansong ABC interview last week! 

Ahmed justified his final year $5.6million salary and bonus package on the basis of his seven year transformation of Australia Post into a parcels-plus-digital conglomerate, with more jobs, as ‘snail mail’ (letters) has halved and post office visits reduce.

A fair enough achievement by a clever man who contrived to become the highest paid public official in the southern hemisphere.  

But in calling for Australia Post to stick to its public service roots, now he’s going Ahmed solemnly sermonised that government-owned businesses had special responsibilities to the public. 

He said: “They’re rooted in deep community service and I think that’s actually the essence of the Australia Post brand especially in rural and regional Australia.”

The 3200 residents of Tura Beach 2548 and many other locals visiting the Woollies Tura complex should blow Ahmed a big raspberry for that whopper! 

The reality is as the second largest and fastest-growing part of Bega Shire, Tura has the worst postal services of all 13 Australia Post outlets in Bega Shire – the same as tiny Kiah and very small Kalaru. 

More than 3500 signatures have been recorded on the petition in the Tura shopping complex calling for upgraded postal services at Tura Beach. 

This local postal upgrade campaign has been running for nearly three years, but is consistently ignored and rejected by Ahmed and his senior managers, for spurious reasons.

They claim there are “adequate services” at Wolumla (21km away), Pambula (13km) and Merimbula (7km). 

As the census confirmed, Tura has one of the highest proportions of over 65s anywhere: seniors not so comfy with Ahmed’s digital world; not happy about trying to get to the Merimbula Post Office with no buses, no parking and steep steps to negotiate before waiting in a long queue to pay a bill.

They need the long-overdue full range of Licenced Post Office (LPO) services located in the Tura Beach shopping complex, with level access and plenty of parking. 

We believe these services should include things like: bill paying; banking; insurance; financial services; travel money, travel cards; travel insurance; money orders; money transfers; post office boxes; foreign currency; passports; identity services; police checks, etc. 

Contrast that with the present minimal Community Post Agency services at Tura. Just postage assessment, stamp sales, and over the counter acceptance and delivery.

The real reason Ahmed’s mob deny postal justice to Tura is they are not business savvy or game enough to work out a compromise with the existing smaller Australia Post franchises around the shire. 

So let’s hope incoming Australia Post boss, Christine Holgate, ex-Blackmores vitamins CEO, can cut through the corporate spin and bureaucratic barriers and give Tura Beach some decent postal services for a change.