A Waikato couple have gone head to head with New Zealand Post – what’s it all about? Roy Pilott reports.

Dani and Ian Kennedy are contesting New Zealand Post’s new delivery plan.
The next stage of a festering row over postal deliveries is days away as Justice Gault prepared to release a ruling on an injunction bid.
Te Awamutu couple Ian and Dani Kennedy are challenging New Zealand Post’s plans to change delivery services and introduce a Multi Run business model.
The couple say they have invested significant money and their company, TGH Ltd, is protected by a contract, while New Zealand Post is attempting to change who can deliver where.
In particular, the company wants to make changes in rural areas which are being swallowed up as towns and cities expand.
One such case is the outskirts of Hamilton, where the RD3 run Dani and Ian Kennedy maintain is, they say, under threat.
They were in the High Court in Hamilton in early October challenging the change – now they are waiting to see whether or not their injunction application succeeds.
Their case is backed Pro Driver Advocates whose chief Peter Gallagher said the latest edition of the company’s communique discusses the idea of “one network” for one person to deliver both mail and parcels to each address.
“What this is saying is what we have been stating all along – that the contracted right for an exclusive run is only as exclusive as NZ Post decides it is – and this is definitely not what these RD guys have been paying big money for.”
The Kennedys are well known in their RD community – when a parcel is dropped off, they send a text message to someone in the home.
Gallagher says the couple invested almost $500,000 in their run four years ago, and New Zealand Post wants to terminate their contract to make way for a multi run courier business model and increase its use of CourierPost deliveries.
The court has been told the couple were the victims of a marketing strategy which was entirely for the benefit of NZ Post “and its culmination was in the dismembering of urban fringe rural delivery routes”.
Gallagher says mail is declining, but there is an increase in parcel fright – and that is where future profit lies.
Danny and Ian Kennedy updated their customers at the end of October with a “we need your support” flyer outlining their concerns and inviting them to tick a box to indicate their support.
It says the new One Network model was announced with no consultation with existing operators.