The Australian book industry needs to win either Darran Hinch or Pauline Hanson over to their side in the Senate to block a proposed ending of the Parallel Import restrictions on books.

Already all Labor and Greens Senators, plus the Xenaphon team have lined up to block the relaxation, which is proposed by the Productivity Commission.

If the industry can persuade Hinch or Hanson to join the block against PIR the proposal will be dead in the water, and with both Senators staking their careers on doing what is best for Australia it is likely that at least one will respond positively.

The local publishers, printers and authors believe ending PIR would decimate the Australian book industry and the 20,000 jobs it represents.

Launching into the push to drop PIR Man Booker prize winning Austrailan author Richard Flanagan says, "The Productivity Commission is like a deranged hairdresser insisting their client wears a mullet wig".

The Productivity Commission believes 75 per cent of books in Australia are more expensive than those in the UK because of PIR. However the boopk industry points to New Zealand whihc driopped its own PIR and where prices have remained the same but the range of books available has been decimated.

Australian Printer understands the drive to end PIR from the Productivity Commission comes from ‘one or two idealogues’, certainly it is hard to understand why an Australian government would want to jeapordise 20,000 jobs, and severely impact on the ability of local publishers to invest in local authors.

Ending PIR has been on the cards for the past decade, but has not yet succeeded.

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