Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The Minister for Small Business has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question:

(1) There is no evidence currently available to the Government which states that in five years time, other than a few specialty bookshops in capital cities, bookstores will cease to exist because of online distribution. However, an unpublished study conducted by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) on behalf of the Department of Innovation has estimated that up to 24.6 per cent of total book sales could be made online by 2014.

At the core of my comments was that businesses need to recognise and adapt to the changing marketplace to ensure that they stand out among their competitors. They need to be innovative, develop new niche markets and new business models. Many bookstores are already being proactive and adapting to the digital and online age by building their capacity to sell online and providing the capacity for customers to access digital books in store.

Bookstores that set themselves apart from their competitors by offering services that are not available online are already cementing their future success. Many bookstores, particularly in regional and rural areas, act as a community hub, offering personal book recommendations and reviews; book clubs; live readings; and author events. Many also contribute to local literacy programs by providing free books to schools, hospitals and other community groups.

The Government is committed to ensuring that Australia's book industry remains sustainable and thrives in the digital economy. Senator the Hon Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research formally established the Book Industry Strategy Group (BISG) in April 2010 to address the challenges of the increasingly digital industry. The BISG has undertaken extensive consultations with the public and industry and will present its final report to Minister Carr in September 2011. I congratulate the retail book industry for working closely with the BISG to ensure that retail bookstores adapt to technological change and remain sustainable into the future.

(a) As stated in response "1" above an unpublished study conducted by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) on behalf of the Department of Innovation has estimated that up to 24.6 per cent of total book sales could be made online by 2014 but there is no evidence to prove that all of these sales will be transferred from bookstores. Studies in the United States and Europe have provided evidence which show that the growth of e-books, in particular, expand the entire market for books and therefore the impact on print book sales is not proportional to the growth in e-books. However, the full impact of these changes, including the impact of the online sale of printed books is still unknown and unquantified.

(b) There is no information available that projects and quantifies the number of bookstores that will close down in the next five years.

(c) There is no information available that projects and quantifies the number of jobs in bookstores that will be lost in the next five years.

(d) There are no projections on what proportion (as a percentage) of bookstore sales will be lost to online retailers based (i) overseas, and (ii) in Australia from any increase in online sales.

(2) No.

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