Last month the Harper Competition Policy Review delivered its final report. Set up by the Abbott Government in late 2013, the report runs to 500 odd pages. As you might expect, the Review does not favour regulations and makes a number of recommendations to the government. Recommendation 13 in particular refers to the book industry, as well as the film industry, recommending that restrictions on parallel imports should be removed unless it can be shown that the benefits of the restrictions to the community as a whole outweigh the costs; and that the objectives of the restrictions can only be achieved by restricting this form of competition. Implicit in this is a view that the existing restrictions make books more expensive than they need be. The restrictions do mean that booksellers can’t import overseas editions of books for which Australian publishers hold Australian copyright, even though it may be cheaper for us to do so. The Australian Society of Authors has vigorously attacked the Review’s recommendations, presumably fearing downward pressure on prices will further reduce authors’ incomes. Successful independent Australian publishers who buy and sell rights and depend on a few successful titles to subsidise the rest of their publishing programs fear that ending the restrictions will damage the publishing and writing ecosystem. It’s a complex question and perhaps the best thing would be to have a discussion about what we want our creative industries to be and how we want them to operate for all stakeholders – and then work out how we may best achieve those goals.

Recently, many of us were saddened by the passing of Betty Churcher – artist, critic, author, broadcaster and gallery director. Melbourne University Publishing published two of her notebooks, illustrated with her enchanting and insightful annotated sketches of the artworks she has viewed. The first, Notebooks, shared impressions from various gallery collections overseas and, more recently, was followed by Australian Notebooks, which naturally shared Betty’s illuminating thoughts on Australian collections. Last year we were privileged to hear Betty in conversation with our own Christine Gordon at a very special lunch at Hawthorn. At the time she didn’t mention a wonderful discovery she had just made. While rummaging in some old files, she chanced upon a notebook of sketches from the 90s when she was director of the National Gallery of Australia. A forgotten notebook of her drawings, these were hasty sketches made as she travelled through galleries of the world. The sketched works were not favourites or deliberately chosen, they were works happened upon as she made her way to meetings where she was intent on securing loans for an exhibition in Australia. The sketches and marginalia record her fresh impressions of artists and works she might not have instinctively turned to. So, in the last months of her life she worked on selecting sketches and adding notes to what will be her final publication. Just days before her death, in hospital, she finished the final corrections. Melbourne University Publishing will publish The Forgotten Notebook later this year.

Mark Rubbo