Carr: printing industry needs a single association

The Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research was the keynote speaker at the event at Eden Gardens in the suburb of Macquarie Park, and responded to a claim by one member of the audience that the industry was being ignored by the government because it was "like the well-behaved child in the classroom".

"It would help if you had one association across the industry," Carr said. "The industry is better served by having one voice."

Printing Industries chief executive Philip Andersen indicated that such a move could be in the pipeline, saying that that the association was "moving towards that objective".

Carr's claims are reminiscent of HAN chief executive Andy Vels Jensen's remarks that the industry is "overly fragmented and awash with organisations supposedly serving the same purpose within the industry".

Click here to see pictures from today's CEO Forum in Sydney.

The minister would not be drawn on the government's position on the Productivity Commission's recommendation to drop the 30-day rule, saying that he was unable to comment on internal Cabinet matters.

"The report is with the Government, and we will be making a decision on it sooner rather than later," he said.

Carr acknowledged, however, that there was no guarantee that lifting parallel import restrictions on books will lead to a drop in prices.

"It is only fair to say that the Productivity Commission is extremely cautious about this," he said. "Nowhere does it assert that we will see price cuts across the board.

"It merely floats the possibility that there 'would be opportunities, from time to time, for the importation and sale of at least a subset of books at lower prices from abroad.'

"Parallel import restrictions were removed in New Zealand in the late 1990s, and the evidence there is mixed."

Carr urged the industry to become more vocal in expressing its needs and more involved in the government process.

"Printing has a great story to tell, but you are the ones who have to tell it," he said.

Carr also warned against trying to "under-cut" printing competitors in the Asian market.

"The race to the bottom is not an option for countries like Australia," he said. "To be in it, we would have to sacrifice the very living standards we are trying to defend - and even then we would not win.

"Our only chance is to join the race to the top. That means increasing our skills. It means increasing our productivity."

Carr responded to more specific concerns in a Q&A session following his speech, with PMP chief executive Richard Allely asking what the federal government was doing for smaller companies in gaining access to available credit during the current economic storm.

Carr pointed to the government's swift response to the financial crisis last year, saying that "these actions meant that today there are a lot of businesses with the lights still on". He also urged businesses to avail themselves of the government's Investment Allowance initiative.

"I'm not saying we've got every answer, but we have acted," he said

The event opened with an impassioned speech from CPI managing director Bernard Cassell, who railed against about the "misinformation and lies" surrounding the sustainability of printing.