Page 14 - Print21 May-June 2020

Campaign
Bring print back home
Industry is campaigning to bring back $150m+ government Tprint jobs from overseas. Wayne Robinson reports.
he AMWU has joined with for prestigious print jobs.
the PVCA and Marvel Union bosses, the head of the Bookbinding and Print PVCA, and printers have spoken Finishing to campaign in the strongest terms, calling to call for all levels of any decision to send taxpayer
government to immediately shift money overseas for print in the
just a week after the campaign was
launched, with McCormack asking for
a written submission, which
Macaulay said will be submitted shortly.
“We have also made a submission to the prime minister, and the National
Cabinet, because we need the campaign to go to the states,
as well,” Macaulay said.
While it may be “cheaper”, the print industry is angry that higher prices
are due in no small
measure to government regulations, which most
printers support, which
all come with a cost, such as environmental, OH&S,
superannuation, taxation, which overseas printers do not have to pay. For the government
to load these charges onto local printers, then turn around and say to those local printers that they are too expensive and they are going to China to buy their print, is seen as perverse. Business can of course do what it wants, and this campaign is not about requiring business to buy in Australia, just government and government-funded institutions.
The US government addresses this issue with an executive order that states: “8-3. Buy American Act. Attention is
directed to the Buy American Act (41 U.S. Code 10 a-d), which provides that the government give preference to domestic source end products.”
While it may be a bit cheaper
for government and government institutions to buy print in China,
it is not economically in the best interests of the country. For example, a $200,000 print job ordered overseas sees that $200,000 leave the country. If the same job is $250,000 here, sure the government has spent an extra $50,000, but the whole $250,000 stays in the country, with the government receiving a significant amount of it directly back in its coffers through taxes, and indirectly as the recipients spend the money – for instance, the worker on the job whose wages go to food, clothes, and his car, all of which attract GST.
To counter the false economy of printing in China, the print industry has launched a petition and urges all
all the $150m+ printing work that it sends overseas back to Australian print businesses.
The campaign – which includes an e-petition – launched as local presses sit idle as a result of the coronavirus, while the government and taxpayer- funded institutions send print work overseas, usually on the basis that “it’s a bit cheaper”.
Taxpayer-funded institutions such as the National Gallery of Victoria and the Queensland Art Gallery are sending major print contracts to China, with values in the hundreds of thousands of dollars
14 Print21 MAY/JUNE 2020
current climate “reprehensible”, “unthinkable”, “inexcusable”, and “frustrating”.
Some $300m worth of print is currently going offshore, mainly to China, but also Vietnam, India, Singapore, and further afield. Around 50-60 per cent of that is estimated to be government or taxpayer-funded work.
Armed with the near 5000-supporter strong Bring Back Print petition, Print and Visual Communications Association CEO Andrew Macaulay met with deputy prime minister Michael McCormack