Postage stamp prices set to increase from 70c to $1

Regular mail will take 2 to 3 days to deliver while “priority” next day delivery will cost extra. All these will happen soon as the Australia Post CEO’s annual salary and bonus was reported to be a humungous $4.8 million. Of this amount, he donated $2 million to the Islamic Museum of Australia in Melbourne. Surprisingly, the donation was tax deductible.

However, Australia Post boss Ahmed ­Fahour will this year forgo his bonus pay of more than $2 million. Six other top executives will give up combined bonuses worth about $1.5m.

It is understood that Mr Fahour has the full confidence of chairman John Stanhope and the board, and met all the key performance indicators set for him, especially in relation to the growing parcels and retail business, which earns 72 per cent of revenue.

Born in Lebanon, Fahour arrived in Australia in 1970. He became Managing Director and CEO of Australia Post in 2009.

The Weekend Australian has reported that Mr Fahour volunteered to have his overall salary cut by more than half at the Australia Post board meeting in Brisbane last month.

He will still be paid his base ­salary of $1.75m, but had been in line for a bonus of between $2m and $2.5m. Last year his bonus was about $2.6m.

The money from the forgone bonuses will be put back into the running of Australia Post, which has been smashed by a $151m loss in its letters business. Australia Post has warned that without a ­restructure, losses from the letters business over the next 10 years could reach $12 billion.

Amid job cuts and rising stamp prices as the decline in the traditional letters business causes Australia Post to face its first ­annual loss in 30 years, Mr Fahour is believed to have told the board that it was appropriate that he also “shares the pain”.

Philippine Sentinel spends a lot of money just to send monthly copies of this newspaper to various distribution outlets in New South Wales. What more of another Filipino newspaper that claims to be “Australia wide”?

Updated: 2015-08-07 — 19:02:15