On 29 October 2009, Dick Smith, a well-known former Australian entrepreneur and adventurer, sent an email letter to federal members of parliament, headed ‘Removal of Import Restrictions on Books in Australia’. His email (which is attached below) was sent to the media by Cato Counsel, lobbyists and public-relations advisers to the so-called ‘Coalition for Cheaper Books’.
I received a copy of Mr Smith’s letter while I was overseas, preparing to return after a post-Frankfurt break. I immediately felt compelled to write a reply, which I’ve reproduced – in slightly edited form – below. The subject that both letters deal with is under heated debate within the federal government as it seeks to decide its position in response to the Productivity Commission report that it commissioned. You can read Mr Smith’s letter here.
Dear Mr Smith
I have long admired your public-spiritedness, but your recent letter to MPs about import restriction on books is plain wrong on every argument you make.
We are an independent Australian book-publishing house that I founded more than 30 years ago, and I can tell you that we – and fellow independents – would suffer the most if your suggestion was adopted by the federal government. My own company is regarded as an industry leader (we have twice won the Small Publisher of the Year award), and I assure you that the foreign-owned publishers you excoriate would cope, but that the independents would be placed in severe jeopardy. We all depend on territorial copyright to support and buttress our overall publishing programme; without it, our turnover and profitability would plunge, we would have little to sell or buy, and diminished means to do so. This would have a knock-on negative effect on Australian authors, independent booksellers, book printers, writers' festivals, the media, and the Australian reading public.
Ironically, if parallel imports were allowed, the country as a whole would be more subject to the whims of multinational publishers – not less. Only this time, the decisions would be made in New York, and not in Sydney or Melbourne. And the booksellers that would benefit most would be from the big end of town.
Believe it or not, there is no certainty, or even likelihood, despite the Productivity Commission’s best efforts, that allowing the parallel imports of books would lower prices. The government has already implicitly accepted this point, as has the so-called Coalition for Cheaper Books, which has sniffed the political wind and has abandoned its previous fervid advocacy for this change.
Even your example of Amazon sales is wrong. Amazon and other on-line booksellers would continue to have a GST-free competitive advantage, even if parallel imports were allowed. The argument is not about on-line sales vs bookshop sales. It is about local bookshops' access to foreign-originated ‘product’. In particular, it is about a grab for increased market share by Dymocks and huge retailers such as Woolworths.
I wish you had informed yourself about this subject adequately before campaigning on it, and then allowing your name to be used – by lobbyists for the big chains – on the wrong side of a vital argument for the nation.
Henry Rosenbloom