It's like deja vu all over again!

All the malarkey about parallel importation, open markets and 30/90-day rules (I’m still not entirely sure I understand them) is on again! It’s all thanks to the surprise announcement hidden away in one paragraph of a lengthy COAG communiqué released in early July.

Apparently all the state and territory governments have come to a sudden consensus that our territorial copyright regulations are a ‘priority area of competition reform’ and a pressing issue on a par with ‘rationalisation of occupational licences, national transport policy and further reforms to infrastructure access.’ Not to make light of it: this is a very serious issue for all of us and we all need to be acutely aware of the potential impact it could have on our trade, but such debates do bring out some nice rhetorical flushes--a bottle of my favourite passable red to anyone who can remember who compared whom to ‘a pack of dingos’ the last time around!