Larvatus Prodeo

In a second piece of good news to come from the Federal government today, the Productivity Commission’s mooted changes to the import regime for books have not been accepted.

The argument about consumer benefit was always spurious – the purported reduction in prices would have been small (and well run public libraries exist precisely to stock books for those for whom marginal prices are a real impact), and the effect would have been to reduce the range of titles available – both because it would have enabled large retailers to further dominate the market and because of its impact on local publishers.

Nevertheless, Guy Rundle is right to say that the interests of authors and publishers are separable, and to highlight the fact that it’s the provisions in the US-Australia free trade agreement preventing particular support for Australian literary production which are the real – but largely ignored – issue.

However, it should be very pleasing to see that governments are not so prone to accepting all free market ideological arguments on trust. And to see the Labor backbench able to influence government policy.

It also might be an appropriate moment to consider what good the Productivity Commission actually serves.

Update: Spike.