This is like watching a slow motion train wreck to be honest. The stupdity of American goverment and guys like Obama boggles me until I watch some other goverments in action. Given the censorship garbage, and their general lack of a grasp on technology and trade I think the Australian goverment should refrain on trying to make desicians on anything involving technology more advanced than a sharp stick.... I know some will be apaled by an outsider saying this, but I've heard other Aussies say the same thing on related subjects over the years.
The basic gist of the situation is this. I'm sympathetic to people who want cheaper luxuries, especially things I also enjoy like video games. A lot of the people in my WoW raiding guild were Aussies or Kiwis, from whom I grabbed a lot of my insights into the situation fro a number of angles. But to be brutally honest the "Continent Down Under" is still fairly isolated globally (there is no magical cure for geography until we have matter transporters), and a lot of the region's charm and what people want to preserve are the anti-thesis of technological development and a lot of the things that would make arguements like the one the goverment is going to raise meaningfully.
The bottom line is this, when it comes to physical products being shipped to Australia, you still need to load them onto a boat or a plane and bring them there. There is more to it than a simple question of the relative value of currency. The price of fuel, wages for crewmen, etc... all contribute, and like it or not with shipping companies (plane and boat) having problems, the rising cost of fuel, etc... combined with the weakened US economy and shifts in priorities makes bringing goods to The Land Down Under even more of a pain, and more expensive, than ever before. On some levels Australians are getting foreign goods incredibly cheaply due to positive global relations, given the
expense involved in physical trade.
When it comes to issues like digital good and the like, understand that it's not magic, all of that takes technology. You need a telecommunications infrastructure to upload, download, and distribute files. By many accounts Austrlia's internet sucks balls to put it bluntly, which makes it a pain for people doing telecommunications stuff to deal with. The goverment has little interest in improving it apparently, and given the desire to leave large parts of Austrlia with it's rustic, undevleoped charm, it means that it's a pain for private carriers to build and maintain things like wireless towers. If I've heard correctly the conditions in the major cities are far differant from the majority of the country and how it functions technologically when it comes to things like the functionality of internet and wireless services.
All of this means that people have to work harder, and spend more money and effort, to bring these kinds of goods and services to Australia. A goverment that (again if I heard correctly) that has no desire to prioritize investing in it's telecommunications and internet, has no business complaining to IT companies when their own pain in the arse policies lead to high prices.
When it comes to games and such there is also a flip side to this as well. Aussies, like people from Europe and such, seem to like to go off about their general lack of anti-piracy enforcement and the insanity of the idea of people going to jail for "stealing" a video game or whatever. I don't know how this works in actual legal terms, but I'm guessing there is some actually on-the-books precedent or protections here that lead to such confidence. Needless to say game producers probably aren't lining up to make their products and IPS availible in a country that pretty much gives free reign to steal what they bring over. That kind of thing probably does influance even digital prices, and if you were on the business side of things you'd probably think the same way.
The end result here is that I'll be very surprised if this ends well. People would like to view this as a powerful goverment calling a bunch of naughty, corperate, children to task and forcing them to change their behavior and be more generous. Sadly I think there is enough legitimacy here (even going by the aussies I've talked to, and their criticisms of goverment policy and electronic infrastructure) that there is no good way it's going to end. The big IT companies are not going to lower their prices under the current situation, and I can't see Australia actually investing in the kinds of infrastructure australian gamers and tech users have wanted for a long time, nor is Australia going to offer to pick up part of the tab as far as transport costs for the physical goods. Given what a pain it all is, if Australia puts it's foot down too hard it might just render itself too much of a pain for any potential profits that could be reaped. I see more potential for these companies to say "F@ck it, your not worth the trouble" and just refuse to do business under these circumstances, than any kind of massive lowering of prices on their good without major compromises from Australia. The most LIKELY actual outcome of this is going to be Australia making a big scene, nothing of note changing, but there being some bad blood that will come back to haunt everyone because at the end of the day big IT companies don't like being brought in for show trials, and being pissed off might very well come out in some "subtle" ways in their future trade.
I could be wrong, but that's my analysis of it. As I said, my initial impression is that like in most technology related issues, Australia's goverment(s) seems pretty bloody dumb and out of touch.
If Australia wants to do better here it needs to become more inviting. Pump up it's internet even to the rural regions, install far more cell and wireless towers to increase coverage along with the infrastructure to make maitnence less of a chore. Pass laws to protect foreign IPs and copyrights (even if it makes it so people go to jail), and perhaps cut some kind of a deal to cover part of shipping expenses for foreign trade. With the rising cost of fuel, filling up those planes and cargo boats is becoming even more expensive, is the Aussie goverment agreed to pay say half the fuel bill or whatever on incoming goods, it could then make a valid claim for those goods to be cheaper.
