New Zealand Post Office

The New Zealand Post Office ( NZPO ) was up to 31 March 1987, a New Zealand authority that was responsible for the entire postal service and the telecommunications sector in the country and in addition in addition to bank transactions, inter alia, also services in the field of passenger and vehicle registration perceived. The headquarters of the Authority was Wellington.

The Authority was formed in the wake of the privatization of public services and state-owned companies with effect from 1 April 1987 in the following three independent companies

• New Zealand Post Limited ( NZPost )
• Telecom New Zealand Limited ( Telecom)

Split. This was based on the Postal Services Act 1987.

The New Zealand Post remained as a State -Owned Enterprise ( SOE) in state ownership. The New Zealand Telecom was sold in 1990 at the Bell Atlantic and Ameritech, a subsidiary of AT & T. The Post Office Bank went in 1989 to the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group ( ANZ).

History

The first official post office was opened in New Zealand in 1840 in Kororareka, today Russell, the year when William Hobson came as a newly appointed vice-governor of the new colony of New Zealand and Kororareka made ​​to its provisional seat.

As early 1841 in New Zealand, which had been up to that time under the administration of the Governor of New South Wales, an independent British colony and Hobson had moved its headquarters to Auckland, he began to organize the postal system. But 18 months later, on September 1, 1842, the British Post Office took over control of the New Zealand postal traffic.

In 1845, there were already eight post offices in the new colony. As New Zealand 1852 more self-government were awarded and two years later his first General Assembly held, was one of the country nearly two dozen post offices for around 40,000 inhabitants. After the Local Posts Act of 1856, the provincial governments were given the right post offices to open, the number of post offices should change quickly. With the Post Office Act of 1858 the postal system was again reorganized and called the first time a separate postmaster general, the centralized development of the postal system in the country.

The new law and the gold discoveries (see the Otago gold rush ) could increase dramatically the number of post offices. In 1860 there were 107 offices and 20 years later there were already 856 in the entire country. From 1860, the postman service was introduced and mailboxes in the post office. By 1863, the first time you could also keep the post office, a service which meant that in 1867 the Post Office Savings Bank opened within the post office.

In 1881 the Electric Telegraph Department, founded in 1863, which had taken over the Auckland Military Network and 1866 first telegraph Wellington combined with Auckland, merged with the Post Office Department. From this point on, there were postal, telegraph and money services from a single source and the new authority was renamed the New Zealand Post Office.

1879, the first public telephone was opened in the post office in Port Chalmers. But the boom to have their own telephone lines, came only after the turn of the century. 1930 was one of the New Zealand Post Office around 125,000 customers. In 1950 the number had tripled, and 10 years later had over 686,000 customers a telephone connection.

The New Zealand Post Office, which had gone into the 20th century with over 1,700 post offices, gradually took over more and more tasks. With the registration of births, marriages and deaths, with the To, From and re-registration of vehicles, with the acceptance of television and fishing license fees to the registration and registration of voters to the different political elections and the disbursement and management of annuities, the Post Office took over the years important municipal functions and governmental matters and was for the people with one of the most important places in the municipality. Even marriages could be made from the postmaster of each post office and collecting weather data for the Meteorological Office, and the dissemination of weather information via the post office to the citizens, demonstrating once again the range of its missions.

In 1987 came the end of that authority. In the course of privatization, triggered by the Labour government of Prime Minister David Lange, the Authority was dissolved, divided into its three divisions postal services, telecommunications and finance and transferred into separate state companies with profit maximization.