Oh I know, I’m just thinking out loud (and crossing my fingers hoping that postal services all around actually take the opinions of philatelists into account! 
)
Thanks for the replies. (My q got bumped to this thread when I started a new thread as I hadn’t seen this one.) Usual auspost shenanigans going on then! 
Looks like I’ll be going with the $3 until things don’t arrive!
AusPost say that letters (and postcards) are a money-loser so unfortunately, no, they don’t want to encourage more — they want to focus solely on parcels instead. They’ve recently been approved to end daily letter delivery (along with raising stamp prices again). They have also recently announced that they’ll no longer be making FDCs of AAT releases as well as stopped advertising postmarks in the Stamp Bulletin (and still don’t have any new postmarks on the website despite customer service assuring me it’d be done this week), so collectors obviously aren’t a priority either. I really don’t think AusPost care if we buy less stamps… as long as we keep buying things online! 
On the main topic, I think the confusion in the postal charges guide is probably just a mistake from copying over the old Seasonal Greeting Card rate info (which was only for enclosed cards). As in the first post, the Stamp Prices page on the website still clearly says the $3 rate includes postcards:
My understanding is that they’ve changed the definition to also include postcards (they’ve also changed the weight limit, which was 20g for Christmas cards). I’ve sent probably hundreds of cards with $3 of (or $3.30 of domestic) stamps from a bunch of different post offices (for different postmarks) since this was introduced and no postal workers have questioned it, including the ones at my regular who used to be very strict on the ‘no postcards without envelopes’ rule at Christmas.
Yikes. This is death by a thousand cuts 
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Even on that link you supplied @plushmail, it still states that unenclosed postcards are to be treated as small letters 
.
So yeah, I’m plenty confused. 
I just want to clarify that I don’t support Oz Post’s crazy stamp prices or lack of continuity in advice. If this is simply a typo…they need to get their act together and fix it. But as you’ve said…we are not the money-making end of the business…so who cares?
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Ah yes, thanks, I had indeed forgotten about that! I would send an enquiry but that system is also frustrating and rarely gets a helpful answer!
At the end of the day, I feel if the postal workers accept it, it’s fine (as they should be the ones required to work this stuff out — not us). I take almost every postcard in to be postmarked at the post office, and I haven’t had any queries about this so I still think the $3 rate is acceptable for postcards. In fact, I’ve also sent a bunch of postcards with $3 to the postmarking head office, and they’ve also arrived at their destinations (but the head office has returned things to me un-postmarked for other reasons).
(Can anyone explain why a postcard would need to cost more than an envelope anyway? I always thought it was really unfair for the Seasonal Greeting Card rate too.)
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(if I may shamelessly promote our tourism industry)
Visit us up here in Southeast Asia - where the postage fees are reasonable (85 cents in Singapore and 90sen in Malaysia) and the cards are plentiful 
(I also think our postal services are of a decent speed!)
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Pure speculation, but I imagine it’s easier for the machines to read a plain envelope with an address, than the back of the postcard, where there is additional text that can confuse it (and that’s before postcrossers add washi tape and stickers).
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As a FYI, the $3 Melbourne stamps are back in stock on the Australia Post website.
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