Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is a particular kind of silence that exists in a library. It's not an empty silence; it's a living one. It's the silence of curiosity, of imagination at work, of children discovering worlds larger than their own and of someone reaching for comfort, knowledge, escape or recognition between the covers of a book. In every city, town and suburb across Australia, libraries hold the accumulated voices of generations: histories, poems, field guides, children's stories, novels and memoirs, and behind each of those books is a writer who worked, often for years and years, to turn their thoughts into language. Everyone deserves access to those words. It's a cornerstone of a fair and democratic society like ours. We must also ensure that our writers are fairly remunerated for the contribution they make to our society and culture.

The public lending right and educational lending right schemes are an important way of reconciling these two objectives. These programs are founded on the simple principle that, while the public benefits from free access to books through libraries and educational institutions, the people who created those books should be compensated for the income they would otherwise have earned through direct sales. They're based on the belief that public access and fair payment can coexist, that libraries should be free and that writers should not be expected to survive on gratitude alone. The origins of these programs lie in the reforming ambition of the Whitlam government.

In 1974, the Whitlam government introduced the public lending right, which recognised that books on library shelves represented labour, not just culture. Whitlam said that the Public Lending Right Scheme marked Australia as a nation that 'recognises the value of creative writing' and that recognises 'the place of literature and the arts in a robust and civilised society'. He said that 'governments cannot create good writing or great art, but they can create the conditions in which art and literature are most likely to flourish'. The educational lending right followed, which acknowledged the irreplaceable role that books play in Australian classrooms. Today, these programs are a vital part of the cultural fabric of this country.

For many authors—children's writers, poets and literary fiction authors in particular—these payments are among the most reliable sources of income they receive from their creative practice. In 2024-25, the Australian government distributed $28 million in lending rights payments to more than 17,000 creators and publishers. Our national cultural policy, Revive, expanded the program to include digital lending rights for the first time, which increased payments by $3.38 million in the first year alone. As significant as these payments are, they pale in comparison to the economic impact of our literature sector.

In New South Wales alone, the sector contributes $1.3 billion a year to the economy and supports up to 22,000 jobs. Writers in Australia, though, are rarely wealthy. Even our most accomplished authors often sustain themselves through teaching, speaking engagements, grants, festivals and casual work. The Australian Society of Authors has noted that Australian authors earn on average only about $18,000 a year from their creative practice. About 76 per cent of authors reported earning less than $15,000 annually from their creative work. These figures should give us all pause.

We ask a great deal of our writers. We ask them to preserve memory; interrogate power; explain the complexity of life to children and adults; and illuminate grief, love, injustice and joy. We ask them to hold up mirrors to who we are and open windows into worlds that we have not yet explored. There are more than 5,000 professional authors living in Australia, and I'm proud that a disproportionate number of them live in my electorate of Macquarie. I'm going to make no effort to name them all, but the Blue Mountains has become one of the great literary landscapes of Australia and has drawn writers for generations—writers like David Brooks, whose poetry has woven together language, memory and the natural world with extraordinary sensitivity, and who recently received the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Poetry; and writers like Jennifer Rowe, known to generations of readers as Emily Rodda, whose stories have shaped the imaginations of countless children. These are just two writers whose work is shared widely through libraries across the country and enriches Australians' lives in ways that are impossible to measure.

The PLR and the ELR recognise that the circulation of literary work through our communities and the permeation of ideas throughout our culture is a public good. For the authors who benefit from the program, the payments matter enormously not because they create vast wealth but because they create possibility—a few more months to write, the freedom to reduce other work, the chance to begin another manuscript and, importantly, a tangible indication that their country values what they do.

The Albanese government understands the symbolic and material importance of this program. That's why we're ensuring it remains modern and responsive to the world as it changes. Publishing has changed dramatically in recent decades. Books now move not only through physical shelves but through digital platforms, audiobooks and online lending systems—so our policy settings must evolve too. This is where the previous Liberal government failed Australian writers. For years, the Australian Society of Authors and other sector advocates warned that the schemes were falling behind the realities of modern reading. Gone were the days—my days—of holding a torch under the blankets, reading a book. Now, ebooks and audiobooks are increasingly common in public libraries and educational settings, just as they are in the home. But the policy framework has not kept pace. At a time when many creators were already under financial strain, the previous government allowed that inequity to persist for far too long.

We should remember what the past decade has looked like for creative workers. The previous government enacted cuts that hit individual artists and writers particularly hard. Then the pandemic devastated arts incomes almost overnight. Income from school visits, festival appearances and speaking engagements simply disappeared during lockdowns, even as Australians turned to books in extraordinary numbers; that was the cruel irony of it.

People speak warmly about books. They talk about the importance of reading to children, literacy and Australian stories. That appreciation must also be reflected materially in the way we support the people who create those works. That's what the PLR and the ELR are about. A manuscript can take years of painstaking work, revision and persistence. Most books do not produce large incomes but a single book can stay alive in a community for decades, borrowed and reborrowed, passed between readers, shaping lives over time. The PLR and the ELR recognise that, long after the initial sale, the cultural impact of a book continues to reverberate. This matters especially in a country like Australia, where local voices can be easily overwhelmed by the scale and market power of global media.

The Albanese government understands that creativity requires more than recognition; it requires systemic support that allows artists to keep working. Australian literature will thrive because people believe in it, fight for it and invest in it. Australian culture cannot thrive with set-and-forget policymaking any more than our literature sector can be sustained by admiration alone.

The modernisation of the PLR and the ELR is by no means the limit of our support for Australian literature. During the consultation for our National Cultural Policy, Revive, we heard from many that literature was the most chronically and structurally underfunded art form. Through that policy, we created Writing Australia within Creative Australia. Writing Australia is now providing direct support for the literature sector, growing local and international audiences for Australian books. In its first three years, Writing Australia will deliver more than $26 million. This is in addition to the $7.8 million that Creative Australia invests annually for literature projects.

In closing, I want to acknowledge the longstanding advocacy of the Australian Society of Authors, who argued that 'Australia's lending rights schemes have fallen out of date and urgently require an upgrade'. I'm very proud that the Albanese Labor government's landmark cultural policy, Revive, answered that call and brought lending rights into the 21st century. I'm proud that this legislation takes a further step in modernising this important program upon which so many writers rely. This legislation will make commonsense, practical changes to a system that's already delivering for Australian authors. The Whitlam government understood the value of creative labour half a century ago, and the Albanese government understands it today. That's why we're ensuring the program Whitlam introduced is fit for now and fit for the future. As we look ahead to digital lending, modernised education systems and emerging technologies, we have a responsibility to ensure these schemes remain strong, contemporary and fair because Australian writers deserve more than praise after the fact. They deserve the means to keep writing, and Australia deserves to keep hearing its own voice. I commend this bill to the House.

See this speech in context