Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Intellectual Property Laws Amendment (Productivity Commission Response Part 1 and Other Measures) Bill 2018. While some members in this House may not find intellectual property fascinating, I can say with absolute confidence that I find it to be an incredibly interesting and incredibly fascinating area of public policy. Anyone who understands the economy—I accept there are some members opposite who do not—understands the power and the role of property rights as the foundation of markets and tradeable goods and services. And, of course, property rights sit at the heart of an innovative economy.

Particularly, intellectual property rights sit at the heart of an innovative economy, because if you don't have some form of property right that sits at the heart of an innovation you cannot trade it, you cannot sell it, you have no sense of ownership, you have no incentive to invest and you do not have the advantage or the opportunity to be able to trade it and for other people to learn of it. One of the great tests of intellectual property is to make sure that innovations and inventions are disclosed so that you can inform the market. It acts as an incentive for other people to be able to learn from the knowledge that other people have invested in so that we can continue not only economic progress, technological progress and social progress, but, ultimately, human progress. While this bill only seeks to amend components of intellectual property laws, it's nonetheless very important, following a long inquiry by the Productivity Commission, as part of the need to make sure that our intellectual property regime keeps pace with the changing nature of the Australian economy and the global landscape.

One of the amendments included in this piece of legislation is directly related to parallel imports. Parallel imports, as some members may be aware, come up from time to time when people import products that have trademarks applied to them. I've just seen Mr Gosling walk into the House, wearing an interesting outfit, to say the least! Clothing is not protected by intellectual property, just so you know. Fashion is not a subject matter, so you'll not be able to claim exclusive rights! But with parallel importation of goods that are trademark protected, having simple, measured, proportionate reforms to parallel import restrictions is incredibly important, because people should be able to import goods into this country and have their property rights respected even if they do not originate in this country.

A few years ago, I was involved heavily in the debate around parallel importation of copyrighted books, up until the point that the Rudd government, frankly, squibbed it, after it was bought off by the arguments of, unfortunately, a small number of people who argued defensively not in the interests of intellectual property, despite the deception that was advocated, but in the interests of people who wanted to protect their industry. It had no impact on culture; that was a great lie put out there by the Australian Labor Party, among a number of other political parties.

With, for instance, copyrighted books, you have two types of property: you have the physical property, which is the pages, the binding and those sorts of things, and then the words, the copyrighted component. What parallel import restrictions did on books was protect the physical part of the book but not the intellectual property component of the book. It was a great deception imposed on this country, which led to people continuing to pay more for books, meaning fewer opportunities for children to learn and fewer opportunities to be able to secure the benefits of education and broaden the knowledge base of the nation, just to protect the interests of commercial operators. It is a shameful chapter in this nation's history, as far as I'm concerned.

Parallel importation should make sure that royalties are paid to the people who hold the IP. That is resolutely the case. What this amendment seeks to do is respect the IP and respect the royalty payments that are deserved, but not protect the interests of—well, these days, the modern Labor Party prefer to refer to them as the top end of town. That was the objective of parallel import restrictions under the models that they preferred in the past. So, this is a good reform.

Similarly, the reforms around plant breeder's rights, as an anomaly, are a consequence of how the intention of the system is designed to work to encourage people to create derivatives directly associated with the innovation and crossbreeding of plant varieties. That's incredibly important, particularly in a nation like ours, with so many unique flowers and plants that are part of our nation and the natural bounty of our Commonwealth. We should be encouraging the value and the extraction of the value of each one of those natural embodiments and endowments. We also have to make sure that we properly reward those people who invest in this type of invention and this type of innovation to the welfare and the benefit of humanity. That's what IP regimes are designed and set up to do. But, when you have an anomaly, where people who don't register certain plant varieties, and, therefore, don't get certain types of—it can undermine the protection of others, and is a disincentive to investment.

Finally, the last provision around the grace period and the extension from three years to five years—

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