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William
Edwin Pidgeon (1909–1981)
Portrait of Colin Simpson [c.1940]
oil on board painting; 30.3 x 27.6 cm (s.m.)
Pictures Collection
nla.pic-an5487739 |
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Australian
writers are rarely big spenders. While their income from royalty
cheques is unpredictable and generally short-lived, their bills
arrive with depressing regularity. Only the very brave attempt
to support themselves by full-time writing. While we Australians
generously fund and celebrate the achievements of our sportsmen
and women, we only rarely acknowledge and support our authors whose
books reflect and interpret our continually changing culture through
their unmistakably Australian characters and settings. Instead
of buying their books, we often wait until we can borrow them from
our local public library.
From
the mid-1960s, the Australian Society of Authors (ASA) has determinedly,
and ultimately successfully, lobbied successive Commonwealth governments
for a Public Lending Right (PLR) scheme. Since 1974, this scheme
has compensated Australian authors, compilers, translators, editors,
illustrators and publishers for royalties lost in sales to the
public because their books are freely available in public libraries.
In the 1990s the ASA campaigned again, for an Educational Lending
Right (ELR) scheme to extend this compensation to books held in
the libraries of educational institutions. Such a scheme was agreed
to by the Keating Labor Government in 1994, abandoned by the Howard
Government in 1996, and finally funded for four years in 2000 as
part of a compensation package to the book industry for the imposition
of the GST on books. This year, funding was renewed for a further
four years. Authors eligible for royalties whose books are used
in school, university and other tertiary educational libraries,
benefit from this scheme.
The National
Library of Australia always welcomes suggestions for interviews
to enhance its Oral History Collection, and was delighted when
ASA President Libby Gleeson asked it in 2000 to record, preserve
and make widely available to researchers, first-hand accounts of
the efforts of those involved in lobbying for and administering
the PLR and ELR schemes. To date, 13 such interviews have been
conducted with men and women who have made important contributions
to these schemes in a wide range of roles since the 1960s.
It was
not unrealistic for Australian writers to look for government support.
The Commonwealth has helped Australian authors since1908, when
the Deakin Government established the Commonwealth Literary Fund.
Inspired by the plight of the family of the author Victor Daley,
it was initially a benevolent fund intended to help ill or aged
authors no longer able to support themselves, the impoverished
families of dead authors, or established writers too poor to continue
writing. By 1939, following agitation by the Fellowship of Australian
Writers (FAW) and the former Prime Minister J.H. Scullin, the Fund’s
budget was trebled and its scope expanded to include the award
of annual fellowships and grants to writers, assistance to publishers,
support for several literary journals, and the promotion of Australian
literature. Its original committee was replaced by a parliamentary
committee headed by Prime Minister R.G. Menzies, which eventually
included a representative of the three major political parties
in Federal Parliament, assisted by an advisory board of writers,
academics and publishers. The Fund’s functions were taken
over by the Literature Board in 1973.
Those
interviewed about their roles in the PLR and ELR schemes fall into
three broad categories—staff and office holders of the Australian
Society of Authors, Commonwealth Government public servants, and
members of the PLR Committee. When the ASA was formed in 1963,
Sydney poet Jill Hellyer became its first (unpaid) secretary. Her
interview recreates the characters and controversies of the early
years of the ASA, and the origins of its campaign for PLR from
1967, when author Colin Simpson was given the PLR portfolio. An
excellent record-keeper, Jill is now the institutional memory of
the ASA and she has given her manuscripts recording its history
to the National Library. Interviews with her successor as Executive
Secretary in 1972, Deirdre Hill, and Deirdre’s successor
in 1981, Margo Hilton, carry on the story of the establishment
and development of PLR up to 1984, and supplement Deirdre’s
book A Writers’ Rights …, on the history
of the ASA.
Author
Barbara Jefferis’ interview describes her efforts as President
of the ASA, 1973–76, to lobby parliamentarians of all persuasions.
The ASA commissioned and partly funded a survey of writers’ earnings
to demonstrate their need for Commonwealth assistance. She calmed
the fears of librarians who were overwhelmingly opposed to a PLR
scheme following a skilful campaign led by the Chair of the Library
Association of Australia, Allan Horton. The ASA gradually broke
down this opposition, she said, ‘by talking ourselves blind’.
Barbara became ASA representative on the PLR Committee in the 1980s.
Children’s
author Libby Gleeson joined the ASA in 1984, and has served on
its management committee as executive member, Chair and Treasurer.
From 1984 to 1996 she was authors’ representative on the
PLR Committee, and successfully campaigned to have the social and
cultural aspects of PLR, as well as its compensatory aim, written
into the Public Lending Right Act 1985. Both her interview, and
that of fellow children’s author Nadia Wheatley, are invaluable
as an account of the ASA’s long and ultimately successful
lobbying for ELR. (Children’s book authors are by far the
major beneficiaries of the scheme.)
After
the decision of the Whitlam Government in 1974 to fund the PLR
scheme, it came under the control of the Department of Prime Minister
and Cabinet in Canberra, although its office was first located
in Sydney. Valery Evans, originally stenographer to Literature
Board member and Chair Nancy Keesing from 1973, became Secretary
to the first PLR Committee from 1974 to 1985 and gives an insight
into the Board’s workings in that period.
Alan
Johnson was Administrator to the PLR Committee in Sydney, 1977–90,
following its transfer from the Literature Board to the Australian
Council for the Arts under the Fraser Government. He describes
a period of exciting cultural change in Arts administration. He
referred to the extension of PLR benefits to the heirs of deceased
authors as the ‘Manoly provision’ (named for Patrick
White’s partner Manoly Lascaris), as it commenced following
Patrick White’s death and reflected the growing acceptance
of gay relationships. Johnson’s interview describes the politics
as well as the administrative structures of PLR, and will be of
considerable interest to historians of Australia’s administrative
as well as cultural history.
The history
of the PLR scheme reflects the development of the use of computers
in Australia. Bob Lane was a computer expert in the Australian
Heritage Commission, who knew nothing about the PLR scheme when
he was appointed in 1990 to replace Alan Johnson as PLR Administrator,
and to moveits administration from Sydney to Canberra— a
decision strongly opposed by the ASA. His interview describes the
diplomatic skills of Warren Horton, Director-General of the National
Library, and PLR Committee Chair in 1991, who soon quelled the
authors’ fears and mistrust and restored harmony to the situation.
Authors Australia-wide quickly learned that they could discuss
their problems freely, and ask advice from Lane’s staff Margaret
Brookes and Paul Bootes. Their interviews trace the development
of ELR from the aborted Keating scheme of 1994 to the current scheme
introduced in 2000, which Paul Bootes still administers.
Since
1974 the PLR Committee— whose role includes determining claimants’ eligibility,
approving payments, and advising, making recommendations and reporting
annually to the responsible Minister—has included representatives
of authors, publishers and libraries. From 1975 to 1990, Anthony
Ketley was the nominated delegate of the Director-General of the
National Library of Australia to the Committee. His interview gives
a fascinating insight into the reasons behind the Australian Library
Association’s opposition to the PLR scheme, and the efforts
of himself and the Committee’s first Chairman Dick Hall to
change librarians’ attitudes. He astutely describes the reasons
behind the transfer of the ASA’s administration from Sydney
to Canberra, and the difficulties this presented to Alan Johnson
as its Administrator. The main reason the scheme was so complex,
he believed, was the decision to include publishers.
Patrick
Gallagher of Allen & Unwin, publishers’ representative
on the Committee from 1992 to 1996, gives a publisher’s perspective
on the work of the Committee. He describes the generally harmonious
way it dealt with the major issues confronting it in relation to
both the PLR and the ELR schemes in the early 1990s, and ends his
interview by describing his efforts early this year on behalf of
the Australian Publishers Association to lobby the government to
refund the ELR scheme. ‘It reflects very well on the importance
of literature to Australian life,’ he concluded.
The Australian
PLR scheme is seen as a model by countries overseas, and no other
country has a comprehensive ELR scheme. Although the government’s
records documenting their side of the history will not be available
to researchers for many years, vivid first-hand accounts are already
available from the National Library’s Oral History Collection.
They describe from a wide variety of perspectives the evolution
of the government’s reasons for funding Australian authors,
and the role of the ASA in achieving this change. While still acknowledging
the need to compensate book creators for royalties lost because
their books are freely available in public and educational libraries,
the government now conceives both schemes more broadly as enriching
Australian culture by encouraging the growth and development of
Australian writing and publishing.
For further
information on either the PLR or ELR scheme, contact the Department
of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts,
Lending Rights Unit
GPO Box 3241
Canberra ACT 2601
Telephone:
(02) 6271 1650
Freecall: 1800 672 842
Email: plr.mail@dcita.gov.au or elr.mail@dcita.gov.au
Website: www.dcita.gov.au/lendingrights
ANN-MARI
JORDENS is a widely-published Canberra-based historian whose works
include Redefining Australians (1995) and Alien to
Citizen (1997). She also conducts interviews for the National
Library’s Oral History Section.
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