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>First, from the little I've been tracking this issue, it appears it was the "relatively moderate", friendly, centrist, old guard Turnbull that was behind these

>First, from the little I've been tracking this issue, it appears it was the "relatively moderate", friendly, centrist, old guard Turnbull that was behind these moves. Chances are it's done as a favour to someone in Washington who needed something from someone connected to the Hollywood lobbies. Not the strongest of motives and the kind of thing that popular opinion can reverse. With Netflix, Fox backed Presto (and the possibility of HBO) all starting up their streaming services over here in the past 6-12 months, It makes commercial sense to get rid of the free competition.

crdb 11y ago
Yes, but these are American companies, not Australian. The move is a favour to Washington, not Australian businesses. Australia has been an extraordinary cash cow for global businesses for a few years [1] although the AUD being hammered more recently has diminished the advantage somewhat. The reason it's important is that politically, local stuff is always much more valuable than scratching the back of foreigners. Take the JSF: it was pure lobbying genius by Lockheed to locate its supply chain in what, 47 states (and 9 countries). If you want to try and make that supply program more efficient, you're going to have to ask a representative to tell his electorate that 2,000 jobs are about to get axed in his state. These kind of things need to be killed before they get started, they are impossible to stop afterwards. But then you get things like Rick Santorum trying to stop the National Weather Service from publishing data publicly for free after getting just $11,000 from AccuWeather (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Weather_Service_Duties_Act_of_2005 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Weather_Service_Dutie...). [1] I know a large, publicly listed retailer who made 40% of their GLOBAL profits from Australia in 2012. RRP was 50% higher there, and they offered free shipping. That company was present in at least 20 countries and based in Europe. The AU office was a couple of guys to answer any questions with local shipment companies - they didn't even have an Australian warehouse...

crdb 11y ago

Yes, but these are American companies, not Australian. The move is a favour to Washington, not Australian businesses. Australia has been an extraordinary cash cow for global businesses for a few years [1] although the AUD being hammered more recently has diminished the advantage somewhat. The reason it's important is that politically, local stuff is always much more valuable than scratching the back of foreigners. Take the JSF: it was pure lobbying genius by Lockheed to locate its supply chain in what, 47 states (and 9 countries). If you want to try and make that supply program more efficient, you're going to have to ask a representative to tell his electorate that 2,000 jobs are about to get axed in his state. These kind of things need to be killed before they get started, they are impossible to stop afterwards. But then you get things like Rick Santorum trying to stop the National Weather Service from publishing data publicly for free after getting just $11,000 from AccuWeather (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Weather_Service_Duties_Act_of_2005 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Weather_Service_Dutie...). [1] I know a large, publicly listed retailer who made 40% of their GLOBAL profits from Australia in 2012. RRP was 50% higher there, and they offered free shipping. That company was present in at least 20 countries and based in Europe. The AU office was a couple of guys to answer any questions with local shipment companies - they didn't even have an Australian warehouse...