Australians who care about our book culture face the loss of what we’ve grown to love – a vibrant, modern, successful, unique relatively small-scale publishing industry that provides the best in books for all tastes, ages and interests.
If we do nothing Australian book publishing companies run the risk of becoming warehouses for overseas imported books.
Australians have the right to read books written by Australians and published in Australia NOT editions of Australian-authored books that have been republished in the US or the UK, changed to suit the overseas market and then imported here to swamp the market.
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2 comments:
What really worries me is the effect this will have on our children's literacy. Foreign published ‘remaindered’ editions of Australian children’s books will be ‘dumped’ here. These will have been edited with American spelling and idiom. Eg. Ute > Pick-up, footpath > sidewalk, footie > gridiron etc.
With diminished opportunities here, Australian authors will be forced to de-Australianise their writing to suit the global market.
Australian publishers will be unable to afford to invest in new picture books and new authors. Yes, no new Possum Magic. Early childhood educators rely on the Australian picture book to give children a sense of 'self' and their Australian world.
Australian children already struggling with reading and spelling will be further confused when they read the foreign editions.
Australian humour will be edited out because the foreign market will not understand our jokes. This will then be sold back to us.
Our children need to develop a strong sense of self and an identity of who they are as Australians. Australian books by Australian authors, which display Australian content with Australian spelling and reflect Australian social and cultural values and indigenous beliefs are one of the few sources still available. Young people are already bombarded with more than enough popular American culture and language in the forms of music, movies and food without taking away the only resource left to them which reflects who they are – Aussie books.
And lets not forget that the Productivity Commission itself says that abolishing PIR's will not necessarily result in cheaper books. The Coalition for Cheaper Books is about bigger profit for Big W, Dymocks and the like.
Smaller publishers carry the cost of investing in local authors. I don't want to see any Australian publishers go to the wall. I can't see an overseas company investing in a book on Anzac Day.
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