Overkill?
A courier came to deliver a package for me on Monday. Only, I wasn’t at home, I was at work, so he left a nice little red Australia Post card on it telling me they’d brought the package back to my local post office and I could collect it during the week. The only problem is that Australia Post only opens from 9-5 on weekdays, which is incredibly inconvenient since there’s no way I can get to Kingsford from work during that time. Normally, you can sign on the back of the red card to authorise an agent to go and pick it up for you (a task which then inevitably falls to my flatmate). However, the post office wasn’t allowing agents to pick it up in this case – only personal signatures, which left me in a bit of a dilemma.
So I did a bit of thinking and realised that a Power of Attorney could do the trick where agency could not. Normally a PoA is used to operate other people’s bank accounts or sign contracts on someone’s behalf and other significant things like that… it gives a lot of authority. All I wanted to do was to pick up my damn mail.
Luckily, the NSW Powers of Attorney Act provides a standard form PoA which I cut and pasted into a Word document. Ten minutes later, I had an instant PoA made out to Robin which had a lifespan of two days and only allowed him to sign for my mail. (I even got Robin to witness the thing, which most probably invalidates the whole instrument since I don’t think the attorney can witness the PoA.) But no matter, it worked and I got my mail in the end.
9:01pm (GMT +10.00) 
Could you not fax/mail them a request to forward the package to a different address, eg. at your work?
I have been annoyed by this for a long time too! If you are unlucky enough to live in a suburb with 9-5 Australia Post (i.e. most places) then there is just no way to get to the post office to pick up parcels. I find it almost unbelievable that this is still the case in 2006 when I can just about do everything else 24/7 and most things online.
Good job on the work around – I am yet to find one!
Do Saturdays not work for you? That’s usually the only time I can pick up a parcel that I’ve missed.
The post office which is holding the parcel doesn’t open on weekends. I guess if the PoA didn’t work (although there’s no reason why a properly executed PoA wouldn’t work), I would get it routed to a post office near work and pick it up during lunchtime – which would be the GPO on Martin Place I assume. Rerouting it to the workplace wouldn’t be ideal because they’d still need my signature and I might be in a meeting at that time or otherwise unavailable (and I’d have to hike up to reception as well…).
Shit dude! I didn’t know your knowledge of law could help you do everyday practical things!
lol
Awesome!