Some past and future challenges for publishing Australian cultural content

For example, QUT has embarked upon its own path of convergence by establishing Australia's first Creative Industries Faculty and its own R&D arm, Creative Industries Research and Applications Centre. This is a bold and imaginative initiative being established on a campus that is open to industry and partnerships that will help drive the new information economy.

It's not hard to see publishing as being one of those industries. To be more specific, educational publishing could be the catalyst for the development of programs of educational content which could find a place in the new multi channel environment.

A dreadful result of the funding plight of universities and the concomitant pressure on them to earn ever-increasing revenue is the way they are forced down business paths for which they are ill equipped. Neither do they have the venture capital.

Perhaps the most exciting of the growth areas will be developed with the help of a new ground-breaking system that identifies and assists in tracking intellectual property in the digital environment. The system operates by assigning a number called a DOI - like an ISBN - to individual pieces of intellectual property content.

This creates enormous potential for the development of new online content partnerships; DOI can be used by publishers to market books directly and securely on line, or to build new business with old book industry partners, schools, TAFES, universities and printers. The Commonwealth government has made a $500,000 grant for a pilot exercise by a consortium of printers, publishers, libraries and universities now being organised by CAL.

These fresh opportunities are relevant to the current Australia-US Free Trade negotiations, on which the publishing industry must continue to keep an extremely watchful eye. The Coalition for Cultural Diversity, which comprises our major cultural organisations, has done a good job in attracting public attention to the importance of these negotiations. Yet the government is by no means naturally sensitive on this score.

A recent survey revealed that 71 per cent of Australians oppose a Free Trade Agreement with the United States that would lead to fewer Australian-made television shows and movies being shown on free-to-air television; 15 per cent would support it; 13 per cent are unsure and 1 per cent said it depends.

Surprisingly, Australians place local content rules above agriculture in the negotiations with only 56 per cent opposing free trade with the US if it excludes agriculture.

Clearly the Australian public has no problems in recognising the importance of our culture industries. Australia must be one of the most culturally open societies in the world, as evident from our book-review pages, our television programs and our film guides. While I am not persuaded that this is a healthy state of affairs, I'd hate to be as closed as either the US or the UK where foreign-sourced television programs amount to eight per cent and 10 per cent, respectively.

One way or another we need to force entry to overseas markets across the range of our cultural output because there is much we can't produce for ourselves.

In respect of the Australia/US Free Trade negotiations informed views are that the US is breaking with the past by taking a more relaxed stance about content regulations and subsidies - on the traditional forms. The new battle lines are being set to draw in digital forms.

In regional negotiations with Chile and Singapore the US has succeeded in redefining E-commerce to be so comprehensive as to include not only the audiovisual but almost anything that is digital.

Our negotiators should be vigilant not only if we are to safeguard current growth but with an eye to the future as well. Now is the time for builders who will move beyond the familiar, not being content with simply more of the same if we are to enjoy the enrichment of our own Australian content.