Books and tariffs

The Productivity Commission has proposed the parallel importation laws regarding books be scrapped. If that first sentence doesn’t mean much, there are laws which restrict the number of copies of a book which can be imported if it’s being published by an Australian company. International competition being what it is, imported books are imported because they’re the same product (really) but are cheaper due to a whole range of factors such as labour regulations, the price of ink and paper, licensing fees, environmental standards for the disposal of paper waste, etc.

It is alleged that removing the parallel importation laws will not only make books cheaper but will destroy the local publishing industry by undercutting the inflated prices that they charge. I find it incredibly interesting that the Institute for Public Affairs (a right wing think tank) are using the “working families” mantra to suggest that Rudd’s education revolution will fail unless the free market is allowed free reign in the realm of published material. You see, there are these things called libraries and these libraries (run by local governments, universities but, I am surprised to see, not the private sector) are a repository for books which someone may opt to not buy due to the economics of wanting to purchase tens of thousands of books.

There are already places one can buy cheap books; Kmart and Target, among others, already stock popular titles at low prices. For everything else, there’s libraries, Borders, Angus and Robertson and independent book stores. I don’t know if pulling down the tariff wall around the publishing industry will destroy it or make it more internationally competitive but the idea that working families are being screwed out of access to literature by laws which restrict the quantity of a certain book which can be imported is completely absurd. Perhaps the IPA should be asking questions regarding what the private sector’s role is in the distribution of published material and how they can contribute to better literacy standards while turning a profit.