Adelaide book supplier, Unibooks has closed down permanently as Adelaide printer Griffin has entered the battle to defend Australia’s book industry against the government’s proposal to remove parallel importation rules (PIR).
Griffin Press CEO Ben Jolly has thrown his support behind the publishing industry while attending a media call held by Senator Nick Xenophon. Jolly warns, “There is a very real possibility the whole local publishing and print industry could disintegrate.”
The government has recently stated it supports the Productivity Commission’s draft report which recommends the removal of PIR and the introduction of a US-style fair use system where courts determine the property rights of individual book titles.
Several industry groups assert this will damage the Australian book printing industry by allowing outside markets like China to import its printed version of books into Australia.
HarperCollins Australian Publishing operations director Robyn Fritchley has also joined the fight against PIR repeal with Griffin, warning that the move will drive up book prices in Australia.
She says, “Innovations in Australian digital print technology and supply methods means we are looking to on-shore as much book production as possible.
“The government’s plan to repeal parallel importation rules would reverse that trend because print runs would become smaller and less economical forcing us back to overseas supply.”
In a sign of the industry’s fragility, Adelaide book supplier Unibooks is now in liquidation after recently closing its doors permanently.
The 80 year-old company supplied study materials to three of South Australia’s public universities and had eight stores across Adelaide campuses along with a warehouse and head office. It employed a staff of 100 people which lost their jobs following its closure.
Unibooks was a subsidiary of the Adelaide University Union (AUU), the AUU forewarned its demise late last year, citing a challenging retail book market as the cause of its woes.
A statement from ANU read, “After careful consideration of the future of the business, the market and our own strategic priorities, and with a number of long-term service contracts due for renewal in coming months, the decision has been made now to wind down the company.
“The retail book market has undergone significant change globally in the past five to ten years, with a shift in technology and a decline in sales. As a not-for-profit business, Unibooks was intended to provide students with affordable access to textbooks; this is increasingly difficult to achieve.”
Unibooks closed shortly after April so it could fulfil a rush of student textbook orders expected during the first university semester of 2016. This week liquidator Hugh Lachlan McPharlin from Nexia Edwards Marshall was appointed to wind up the business.
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