Residents of Tharwa south of Canberra are losing their local post office, with Australia Post refusing to issue a new licence.
The Jeffrey family operated a licensed post office out of the Tharwa General Store for years, but has sold the business - and the LPO will close on Thursday.
Tharwa Community Association president Mandy Curtis feels her beautiful village, which already lost its primary school and preschool, has been neglected.
"It's really a forgotten community out here, and it's just unfair on us," Ms Curtis told The Canberra Times.
"We have fires, we have floods, we have droughts, that's all part and parcel ... but this is another little kick up the bum."
Australia Post has proposed that the LPO, which handles 6000 postal items a year, be replaced with a community postal agent.
It's understood this would mean tens of thousands of dollars a year less for the store's new owner - and no deal has been reached.
Without a local post office to pick up parcels from, Ms Curtis says, residents of Tharwa and the surrounding district - most of them on rural properties - would be seriously disadvantaged.
"We have a drum for a letter box, but the postie doesn't bring it out to us," she said.
"My husband's family, my grandchildren are sixth generation on the property that we live on ... We chose to follow the family footsteps, but we didn't choose this."
The nearest licensed post office, at Lanyon Marketplace in Conder, was a 20-minute drive from her home.
Australia Post has assessed Tharwa as not needing an LPO, which includes the ability to pay bills using Post Billpay, because this facility is rarely used.
A spokesperson said in a statement that Australia Post "understands how important its services are to the Tharwa community" and was "seeking expressions of interest" from anyone who might want to run a community postal agency" in the township.
"We will continue to keep the community updated."
But Ms Curtis said the national carrier was there to provide a service and needed to make it viable for the local store to run a post office.
"They make an absolute squillion in profit, look at what they pay their execs," she said.
Liberal ACT Senate candidate Nick Tyrrell wrote to Finance Minister and ACT Labor senator Katy Gallagher asking her to intervene.
"The discontinuation of these important postal services .... will be devastating for the communities that depend on it," Mr Tyrrell wrote.
"Tharwa's postal service pre-dates the ACT's formation and withdrawing this historic service would force the community to question the government's commitment to ACT residents who do not live in densely populated urban centres."
Senator Gallagher, whose office had been talking to the new owner, wrote to them saying that "as Australia Post is an independent government business enterprise, I am not able to interfere in their operational decision-making processes."
ACT Opposition Leader Mark Parton said Tharwa "has been kicked in the guts for the last decade" through decisions made "by various levels of government."
"I don't want to see another one," Mr Parton told this masthead.
He said Australia Post, which in February posted a pre-tax profit of $50.4 million in its mid-year company results, should be more focused on service delivery.
"I would be dismayed if indeed we end up with a situation that this service is not being provided to these residents and surrounding residents."
This masthead asked Communications Minister Anika Wells if she supported the move by Australia Post, which the government owns, to transition LPOs like Tharwa to community postal agents with a reduction in services at a lower cost.
A federal government spokesperson replied: "Post office closures are decisions made independently by Australia Post and its licensees."
"The government expects any action taken will be done in consultation with affected communities," the statement said.
"The government recognises the importance of all Australians being able to access postal and other services."
Australia Post is a corporate Commonwealth entity and governed by the Australian Postal Corporation (Performance Standards) Regulations 2019, which the minister can amend.
Then-communications minister Michelle Rowland did so in 2024.
The regulations require Australia Post to operate a minimum 4000 retail outlets nationally, with at least half and no fewer than 2500 to be in rural and regional areas. It currently meets these quotas.
