David and Goliath in this part of Oz: How 405 residents saved a 193-year-old post office

When a community of just 405 people faces off against a national crisis that's already claimed 73 post offices in a single year, you might expect the outcome to be predictable.

But you'd be underestimating the determination of Tasmanians—and the power of the world's longest post office queue.

The tiny town of Fingal, nestled in Tasmania's north-east valleys, has just pulled off something remarkable. After nearly two centuries of continuous service since 1832, their post office was facing closure until a local farming family stepped up to save it.

This isn't just another feel-good story about community spirit, though there's plenty of that. It's a blueprint for how rural Australia might fight back against a crisis that's reshaping the social fabric of small towns across the continent.

When the heart of a town stops beating

With a population of just 405 people, Fingal might seem like an unlikely place to stage a David versus Goliath battle. But as local resident Hamish Thompson puts it: 'I think post offices are kind of like a vital organ in any town. Without a post office, a town, in my view, kind of ceases to exist.'

That's particularly true in Fingal, where the post office has become far more than a place to send mail. The town's hotel closed in the 1960s, and with no bank remaining either, the post office serves as the community's meeting place, banking hub, and vital lifeline to the outside world.

The closure threat wasn't idle. Across Australia, 73 post offices closed in 2024, with Australia Post on track for 100 closures by June 2025. CEO Paul Graham explained that post offices close when licensees retire, fall ill, walk away due to financial unviability, or when leases expire.

The longest queue in valley history

When Hamish Thompson decided his town needed saving, he didn't organise a petition or write to politicians first. Instead, he enlisted residents to help film a campaign video and asked people to show their support in the most visible way possible—by literally lining up.

'Help us save the Fingal post office,' was the simple message. What followed was extraordinary: hundreds of residents from Fingal and surrounding areas formed what organisers described as the longest queue the Fingal Valley had ever seen.

Among those in the queue, quietly contemplating whether to take on the enormous challenge, were Maria Kinze, her husband, and her son William Russell. They run Primal Pastures, a local farm, and had never operated a post office before.

'My background is in aged care and theatre nursing and then of course being up on the farm as well, so I've never done anything like this,' Ms Kinze admitted.

But seeing the sheer number of people who turned out convinced them to put their hands up. Their expression of interest was accepted by Australia Post, and this week, after intensive training, they opened the doors to serve their first customers.

More than mail: understanding rural necessity

To understand why 405 people would rally so fiercely to save their post office, you need to appreciate what it means in a place like Fingal. This isn't just any small town—it's a place where convicts were once stationed in 1827, where Van Diemen's Land's first payable gold was discovered nearby in 1852, and where coal mining booms once brought prosperity.

Today, Fingal is famous for its annual Valley Festival and World Coal Shovelling Championships, which attracts interstate and overseas competitors along with thousands of spectators, featuring everything from sheaf tossing to wood chopping.

But the mining booms are long past, and like many rural towns, Fingal has watched essential services disappear one by one. The post office represents something irreplaceable: 'It's a meeting place, it's where people congregate together, it's for banking as well as mail,' Ms Kinze explained. 'It's like a lifeline to a lot of people.'

For the Russell family's farming business, the post office closure would have created practical nightmares. 'The post office here in Fingal is also our bank, so whenever we're doing deliveries or dealing directly with customers, we will do our banking here in town,' William Russell said. 'So it's a crucial service for not only our farm, but the whole community.'

The alternative? A 25-kilometre round trip to St Mary's every time someone needs to ask: 'Is there anything for me?'

Innovation meets tradition

What makes the Fingal story particularly compelling isn't just that a family stepped up—it's how they plan to make it work. The Kinzes and Russells aren't content to simply maintain the status quo and hope for the best.

Their vision transforms the post office into a true community hub. They're planning to stock produce from local farms, including their own, creating a local marketplace. The back rooms will become a bed and breakfast where the family will live, with Ms Kinze and her 'little doggies' moving in to provide round-the-clock availability.

But they're thinking even bigger. Plans include setting up a bakery, partnering with other locals to run a food van out front, and creating multiple revenue streams that could make this model financially sustainable.

'First and foremost is keeping the postal service running,' William Russell emphasised. But clearly, they understand that in 2025, a rural post office needs to be more than just a place to buy stamps.

A model for rural revival?

Hamish Thompson sees the post office rescue as something bigger than saving postal services. 'It feels like a turning point for the town,' he said. 'It feels like suddenly there's a little bit of entrepreneurial zeal in the place.'

For regional communities that operate at a different pace to metropolitan areas, post offices serve as essential service hubs connecting communities, providing spaces for people to collect parcels, pay bills, and do their banking—and closing them means disrupting how communities connect while slowing down small business operations.

The Fingal model—community mobilisation plus innovative business planning plus family commitment—offers hope for other threatened rural post offices. Australia Post does operate Community Postal Agents (CPAs) in rural areas, typically run in conjunction with other businesses like general stores, but the Fingal approach goes further.

By combining traditional postal services with local produce, accommodation, food services, and community space, they're creating what could be a template for rural sustainability.

Whether this entrepreneurial experiment will succeed long-term remains to be seen. But for now, a town of 405 people has shown that community determination can still triumph over economic inevitability.

The road ahead

For Maria Kinze and William Russell, the real work is just beginning. They're moving from farm life to being at the heart of every community interaction, from early morning postal deliveries to late-night conversations with B&B guests.

The financial sustainability will depend on whether their innovative approach can generate enough revenue to keep the doors open long-term. But they're not going it alone—they have the demonstrated support of their entire community, and the knowledge that what they're doing matters deeply to 405 neighbours.

As towns across rural Australia watch essential services disappear, Fingal offers a different narrative. Sometimes, when everything seems stacked against a small community, the solution isn't to accept defeat—it's to get creative, show up in numbers, and remind the world that some things are worth fighting for.