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‘A pox on the GST!’ wrote one of our many new readers last month when filling in her subscription form. ABR has long been famous for its feisty correspondence (never more so than last month). This editor is not about to disagree with our new subscriber. The imposition of GST on books and magazines surely rates as one of the crasser political acts in recent years. Anyone unsure of its effect on literature in this country should ask booksellers and publishers what sort of a year they had in 2000. Readers weren’t unscathed, either.
It is pleasing, therefore, to learn that the Australian Booksellers’ Association has mounted a major campaign to persuade government to overturn this philistine tax. The ABA is gathering funds for its ‘Rollback on Books’ campaign, which will coincide with the federal election due later this year.
Two new columns make their first appearance in the September issue. ‘Gallery Notes’, which will appear each quarter, will cover major exhibitions in our galleries and museums, as well as offering us a foretaste of what our artists are producing in their studios. Patrick McCaughey, former Director of the National Gallery of Victoria and a long-time contributor to this magazine, inaugurates this series with an exuberant survey of contemporary art.
‘Author! Author!’ – less sanguine, but just as important – addresses some of the key issues affecting writers and, thus, publishers and readers. In his first column, José Borghino, Executive Director of the Australian Society of Authors, discusses the next round of trade liberalisation talks at the World Trade Organization, which has ominous implications for our ‘cultural industries’. Australia, already a generous net importer of cultural goods and services (read some of José’s statistics and weep!) is clearly vulnerable to the world’s biggest producers and exporters. The ASA rightly insists that Australia must maintain cultural exemption when it comes to trade liberalisation. In his next column, José will discuss the furore surrounding the proposed parallel importation of books – another great leap backwards.
All is not gloom, however. This month, ABR is off to the theatre. Highlights of our coverage of music and theatre include Peter Craven on William Shakespeare and Andrew Riemer on Richard Wagner. Wagner is much on our minds at present, as we anticipate the Australian premiere of his masterpiece Parsifal, to be given in Adelaide on September 22. I was delighted when Maestro Jeffrey Tate, returning to Australia for the first time since conducting Adelaide’s Ring Cycle so memorably in 1998, agreed to write our ‘Diary’ this month. Bravo!
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