Postal work was a highly skilled profession, with manual sorting requiring a huge amount of knowledge. Mail sorters would memorise streets, towns, and other geographic information as part of the process of delivering the post. There were about 8,000 delivery offices, which often required up to three stages of sorting before the letters could be delivered. The postal system was organized by regional and suburban sorting centres, each with their own working and union agreements in place.  

Automation was first introduced in the postal service in the 1930s at Sydney GPO when conveyer belts were installed. By 1958 the Postmaster-General’s Department wanted larger scale mechanical systems in place to help automate the process even more. The long term plan was to implement these world first postal mechanization services in NSW, and then roll out to the rest of Australia. 

In 1965 the Redfern Mail Exchange opened, the first step in automating and centralizing mail sorting for NSW. Construction was controversial, with reports of more than 300 residential evictions taking place to clear the site.