Industry fears parallel importation of books

With the Federal government only weeks off announcing the outcome of the proposed changes to book importation laws, the CEO of Penguin Australia and New Zealand, Gabrielle Coyne, said authors such as Richard Flanagan (Speech here) and Tim Winton were right in their fears about the removal of import restrictions on books.

“Penguin would survive but we would be smaller,” she said, and the threat would be to new Australian writers and smaller publishers.
Malcom Neill, the CEO of the Australian Booksellers’ Association said it was the success of stores like Fullers “that go to the core of these issues – at the very least we must maintain territorial copyright.”

Clive Tilsley, owner of Fullers Bookshop, talked about a book from a small Western Australian publisher by Tasmanian Aboriginal elder, Ronnie Summers (co-authored with Helen Gee), Song Man: “These sorts of publications would become very difficult to be economic,” he said.

The Federal government will meet in late October to announce their position on the removal of the tariffs, which have been strongly lobbied for by the Coalition for Cheaper books, which includes Woolworths, Dymocks, Kmart and Big W.

Fullers Bookshop is Tasmania’s leading independent bookshop and the launch was of their new premises.