Dialogue: Import free-for-all threatens our identity

A protected market for writers and artists is vital to nationhood, says KEVIN CHAPMAN*.

So, your kids dance to rap music and wear their baseball caps back-to-front.

Their schoolteachers want to adopt American spelling because no one has told them how to change the default language on their computers, and friends tell you that internet access can't be controlled because it will interfere with their "constitutional" rights. Put cash registers in hospital wards, buy a handgun and we might as well be American!

We are inundated with foreign culture, especially from the United States. Some will say that it is inevitable, but so is crime, and we continue to fight that.

How do we protect our national culture - those things that make us identifiable, and different from every other country? After all, there is a plethora of film and publications that depict life in words and pictures from Manhattan or London.

We need to ensure that we can have a good supply of words and pictures that depict life in Auckland, Hawera, or Kurow.

The problem is that it is not easy to make such material available. It is cheaper to buy a foreign drama series than to make a New Zealand series. It is cheaper to publish for a market of hundreds of millions than for a market of four million.

This problem will always exist. We constantly reward foreign manufacturers and producers for having a large enough base market to develop economies of scale.

We also punish New Zealand manufacturers and producers because they don't have that size of base market.

But we need those New Zealand drama series and those New Zealand books to reinforce our national identity. We are different from Australians, Americans or Britons, and we need to portray what we are.

Our children especially get much of their identity from diverse "popular culture" media, so we must ensure that the Kiwi personality is well represented.

This is why parallel importing of cultural products is such a threat. When it was elected, this Government stated that it would change laws on parallel importing to give cultural industries some protection. Nothing like before 1998, but some.

This commitment seems to be under threat. The main point has been lost in the debate and attention has focused on price and availability. Unfortunately, there is a lack of credible research on this, and much of the "information" around is little more than anecdotal.

But there wasn't a problem before the law changed in 1998, so there is no need to believe that there will be one if the law is changed back. If there is real concern, there are overseas models to ensure that consumers are protected.

The price and availability issue is really a red herring. The real issue is the cultural threat.

The US and Europe don't have open markets, and you could argue that their size gives them more economic and cultural protection. If Americans don't see the advantage in allowing parallel importing of books, why would a small, more vulnerable culture gain from it?

Writers in New Zealand have little chance of making a living from their craft. Writing, or publishing, for a market of four million will always be extremely difficult.

A market of around 20 million English-speakers is not considered large enough to support a writing and publishing community in Canada without Government support, so why is New Zealand exposed? Perhaps because we haven't recognised the threat.

To give some chance of levelling the field, at least controls on parallel importing offer the New Zealand publishing industry a chance to improve the economies of scale that are so critical in the financial analysis of a publishing risk.

There is no chance of going back to the situation that existed before 1998, but the offer to redress the balance to some degree should be honoured, and now.

* Kevin Chapman is president of the Book Publishers Association.