Printing Industries Association of Australia
Eden Gardens
North Ryde, NSW
[check against delivery]
Over the last twenty months I have dedicated myself to building partnerships with industry.
This experience has taught me that if a partnership is going to work, it must be based on mutual respect and mutual obligation.
It must be a relationship between equals – a relationship to which both sides contribute.
That is the kind of partnership I want to have with the Australian printing industry, and it is my very sincere hope that you want that kind of partnership, too.
Printing Industry Working Group
The first thing I did after speaking to you last year was set up the Printing Industry Working Group.
Its mission is to provide me with strategic analysis and advice.
The group met for the first time in October 2008 and again in March this year.
It got off to a good start, identifying three issues it considered critical.
They were:
• innovation
• economic and environmental sustainability
• and the availability of skilled people.
No one can deny the importance of these issues, but it is not enough just to name them.
The industry has to start thinking about how they can be addressed.
To that end, I have asked my department to sit down with the working group and figure out the best way to keep things moving.
If that means giving the department a more hands-on role and putting more departmental resources at the group’s disposal, then let’s get on with it.
The important thing is to maintain momentum.
Innovation
This industry is just too important to leave on the back-burner.
Last year I talked about how vital printing was to the Australian economy, as measured by how many people it employed and how much value it added.
There was a tendency back then to take jobs and growth for granted – it was only a year or so ago, but it was a different world.
The global recession has reminded us that we should never take these things for granted.
If we want to maintain our living standards, we have to work at it.
We have to become more competitive.
That does not mean we try to undercut our low-cost competitors.
The race to the bottom is not an option for countries like Australia.
To be in it, we would have to sacrifice the very living standards we are trying to defend – and even then we would not win.
Our only chance is to join the race to the top.
That means increasing our skills.
It means increasing our productivity.
Above all, it means increasing our capacity to innovate.
You ask what the government has done for printing since last we met.
Let’s start with Enterprise Connect, which is now providing innovation and business improvement services through a network of centres around the country.
Let’s go on to the release of the government’s innovation strategy, Powering Ideas, which provides the policy framework for creating new industries and transforming existing ones over the next decade.
And let’s not forget the $3.1 billion funding boost for research and innovation in the last Budget – the biggest increase on record.
Let’s not forget the new R&D Tax Credit, the most significant reform to business innovation support in more than a decade.
It will double the base level of R&D support for small firms and increase the base level of support for larger firms by a third.
Let’s not forget the new Commonwealth Commercialisation Institute, which will help bring new Australian products and services to market.
Now, some of you might object that this has nothing to do with printing.
All I can say to that is, “Why not?”
This industry is no different from any other.
Its survival and prosperity depend on its willingness to be creative – to do things in new and better ways.
The support is out there, but if you are looking for old style industry assistance, you won’t find it.
The assistance we provide is for innovation – and I want you to make the most of it.
New measures like the R&D Tax Credit and the Commonwealth Commercialisation Institute will be coming on stream in the months ahead.
Why not get involved now and help to shape their design?
We are asking all branches of industry to give us the benefit of their experience.
We certainly want to hear from you.
Procurement
This year’s Budget represented the biggest commitment to research and innovation ever made by an Australian Government – but it didn’t end there.
Just last week the Government announced a $19.1 million package of new measures designed to get more people buying Australian at home and abroad by promoting local industry participation in big projects and procurements.
The package includes:
• an extra $8.5 million for the Industry Capability Network
• $2.5 million to apply the Australian Industry Participation National Framework to major Commonwealth procurement and infrastructure projects
• and $8.2 million to establish a new supplier advocate program.
The supplier advocates and the Industry Capability Network will strengthen the links between government procurement, industry development, innovation and training – especially by forging alliances with Enterprise Connect and Austrade.
On the same day, Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner announced that a procurement coordinator will be appointed to handle complaints and promote best practice in Commonwealth procurement.
Lindsay also announced improvements to AusTender.
This isn’t about giving people preferential treatment.
It is about giving them a fair go.
The only way to develop Australian industry and secure Australian jobs is by building the skills, creative capacity and productivity we need to compete internationally.
That is what the Government’s whole innovation agenda is about.
This package takes the next step by ensuring that local firms are not sidelined before the race begins.
Parallel imports
When we met last time I posed a couple of rhetorical questions.
The first was, “Can we build a knowledge economy without a strong printing and publishing sector?”
The second was, “Can we maintain a lively culture without them?”
My answer to both those questions was and remains a resounding, “No.”
As we said in Powering Ideas: “Better information produces better decisions. The free flow of information fuels innovation.”
Despite all the advances we have made in information and communication technology, the printed page is still one of the most effective means we have at our disposal for sharing information – and certainly one of the most user-friendly.
As the knowledge-intensity of our economy grows, the demand for information will grow with it.
It is essential that we retain the capacity to meet that demand – not just online, but through every medium that has the potential:
• to improve our access to the global knowledge pool
• to increase the international impact of Australian ideas
• and to support the kind of networks and collaborations we need if we are to get the best possible mileage from our public and private investments in innovation.
That definitely includes print.
With this in mind, I understand this industry’s concerns about the Productivity Commission’s recent report on the parallel importation of books.
The report is with the Government, and we will be making a decision on it sooner rather than later.
I am sure you will understand that I cannot comment on the government’s deliberations, but there is no denying that the commission has raised a number of interesting questions.
Naturally, I come to this from the perspective of my own portfolio.
What does it mean for innovation, industry, science and research?
What are the costs and what are the benefits?
One frequently cited benefit of removing restrictions on parallel imports is that book prices will fall.
It is only fair to say that the Productivity Commission is extremely cautious about this.
Nowhere does it assert that we will see price cuts across the board.
It merely floats the possibility that there “would be opportunities, from time to time, for the importation and sale of at least a subset of books at lower prices from abroad.” (p. D.7)
Parallel import restrictions were removed in New Zealand in the late 1990s, and the evidence there is mixed.
A survey conducted in 2004 found that New Zealand prices had actually increased relative to prices in Australia and the United
States compared to four years earlier. (NECG, pp. 40-41.)
Against this, we would have to consider the costs.
What will this mean for employment – not just in printing, but in publishing and distribution?
What will it mean for regions such as Northern Adelaide and Central Goldfields, where our two biggest book printers are located?
The Enterprise Connect Innovative Regions Centre is focusing on these areas and six others experiencing high unemployment and acute adjustment pressures.
Is there a danger that removing parallel import restrictions may add to those pressures?
And what will it mean for the innovation system?
This goes back to my point about being able to satisfy the demand for information in a knowledge economy.
Can we afford to lose capacity in industries which are critical to the dissemination ideas?
It will surprise no one that scholarly publishing is not a lucrative activity.
Publishers – even academic publishers – rely on the money they make from popular titles to fund the publication of books that may add in critical ways to our understanding of the world, but which will never be best-sellers.
If margins are squeezed – for example, by competition from remaindered foreign books – where will the money come from to support this kind of publishing?
These are just some of the questions raised by the Productivity Commission’s report – in my mind at least.
I would be interested to hear your views on them, and on the other challenges facing this industry.
The future
My own views on Australian manufacturing are pretty well known – I get pilloried for them by the neo-liberals every day of the week.
I can live with that.
In fact, as Clark Gable once put it, I don’t give a damn.
What I do give a damn about is building modern industries that provide quality jobs.
Printing can and should be one of those industries – and it will be, if I can help it.
But I cannot do it on my own.
You have to meet me half way.
You must be able to articulate a vision for your industry and suggest practical steps we can take – and I emphasise the “we” – to make that vision a reality.
That is what the Printing Industry Working Group was set up for.
Of course my department and I will do everything we can to help the group succeed.
But it is your job to come up with the ideas, and it is your job to sell them.
It is especially important that you are able to speak with one voice – I believe this is the most urgent challenge facing the industry.
Last week we read about a new campaign to get businesses communicating online rather than on paper, supposedly because it will save the planet. (AFR, 29 July 2009)
Of course, this overlooks the 33 billion kilowatt hours of energy wasted in the process of distributing spam each year – a point this industry has drawn attention to.
It is essential that you really get out and pitch the message that printing is a vital and sustainable part of twenty-first century life.
Printing has a great story to tell, but only you can tell it.
Your invitation to this function promoted it as an opportunity to nail Carr.
That’s a pretty innovative way to get people out to a corporate lunch.
It reminds us that printing is and always has been a creative industry.
Let’s put that creativity to work.