A Critique of Cultural Protectionism
by Imre Salusinszky
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Australian television will not look Australian until we have effective regulation requiring more local content, particularly more drama. (ÔTV ø Make It AustralianÕ Committee booklet, 1989)

So pervasive is the protectionist mindset in Australia that, even after it becomes clear that tariffs are a destructive force within our economy, even after it has been demonstrated that they reward special interests at the cost of the community as a whole, even after it is pointed out that their victims are not ÔforeignÕ workers but Australian workers in non-protected or export-oriented sectors, and even after the benefits of tariff reform have begun to flow through the economy, the protectionist mindset persists. That it does persist has been shown in recent times not only by the emergence of One Nation, but also, and more disturbingly, by signs of a counter-enlightenment within the Australian Labor Party (ALP). But I believe that these are temporary setbacks, and that most Australians are now facing in the direction that, for all its difficulties and challenges, Bert Kelly recommended: outwards, and prepared to engage with the world.

But there is another area where this direction has not been squarely faced: that of culture, the media, and the arts. Investigating the relationship between these two forcesøeconomic and cultural protectionismøis a large part of what I want to do here. First, I want to look at the relationship between economic and cultural protectionism, and to argue that, many suggestions to the contrary notwithstanding, they are not really different at all: cultural protectionism can be easily reduced to economic protectionism. It has the same sources, displays many of the same characteristics, and is driven by the same motives: principally, ethnophobia and greed. And it fails for the same reasons.

Second, I want to address the most frequent claim that is put forward to recommend cultural protectionism, and to distinguish it from economic tariffs. This is the claim that there is something called Ôcultural identityÕ or Ônational identityÕ , which cultural protectionism is required to guard, and that the arts are central to the definition and expression of. In economic terms, the identity argument is, in effect, a positive externality argument: the services that the cultural sector performs for our national identity benefit us all, but that sector cannot be compensated adequately for them through ordinary markets. (An argument, by the way, considerably weakened by the advent of pay-TV, which does allow pricing mechanisms directly to reflect the higher demand for local product.) Hence the need for anti-competitive measures like quotas, or limitations upon the entry of foreign performers, books, and CDs into Australia. What I will suggest is that the notion of Ônational identityÕ is not only riven with internal contradiction, but also implies a limited and unproductive view of the arts, and of their function in individual and social life.

Economic and cultural protectionism

In April last year, in the so-called Blue Sky case, the High Court of Australia decided that free trade agreements with New Zealand should take precedence over local content quotas, meaning that television programs originating in New Zealand could be counted for the purposes of those quotas. Immediately, workers in the film and television industry mobilised against the decision. They formed up into a new protectionist alliance calling itself ÔTrue BlueÕ (possibly unaware that the phrase itself is a cultural import, originally used in the 17th century to describe a type of staunch British conservative). A meeting in Melbourne, addressed by Blue Heelers John Wood and FrontlineÕs Alison Whyte, attracted wide publicity. The report in The Australian featured a large photo of Wood and Whyte, and quoted Wood as saying that, once free trade was used as a lever, the industry would be open to competition from producers such as Britain and the US as well. It also quoted Mac Gudgeon, president of the Australian WritersÕ Guild:

IÕve heard Tim Fischer say that culture should be treated like any other productølike shoes or wheat. Well, culture is not like shoes or wheat. Shoes pretty much are the same all over the world and so is wheat. Culture is identifiable. ItÕs the stories of the people who live in a certain country.

The report in The Australian closed with these words: ÔThe meeting in Melbourne yesterday urged people involved in the industry to lobby politicians to take control of the agenda.Õ

Let me suggest that the kerfuffle we witnessed over the Blue Sky ruling is a kind of recurring scene in Australian cultural life; indeed, it is like what Freud called a Ôrepetition sceneÕøthe site of a psychological blockage so deep and profound that it cannot be got past or broken through, only endlessly replayed. Of course, the characters may change, but the scene remains the same: if the issue is books, then the scene is acted out by prominent writers like Tom Keneally and Peter Carey; if it is CDs, then by prominent musicians like Peter Garrett and Tina Arena. And the fact that this scene is peopled with celebrity actors, writers, and musicians is what has gradually allowed cultural protectionism to accrue the aura of a vast, permanent telethon: you would no more oppose it than you would oppose spastic kiddies.

What is it, then, that this shifting cast of characters is actually protecting? Our culture, certainlyøor so they claim. But obviously their own livelihoods as well, which they are protecting from the pressure of international competition. More specifically, they are protecting a system of laws and regulations that insinuates itself into almost every area of intellectual and artistic endeavour in Australia. In commercial radio, 25 per cent of all popular music broadcast must be Australian. In commercial television, at least 55 per cent of all programmes broadcast between 6.00 am and midnight must be Australian, and, in addition, 50 per cent of all childrenÕs programs must be Australian. At least 80 per cent of all advertisements broadcast by a commercial television station in the course of a year must be Australian. And as we were reminded recently by the appearance of Tom Conti in Art, there are strict limits on the use of foreign actors in Australia.

For decades there were laws banning the importation of foreign books where there was a copyright holder for those books operating locally. More recently, this has been watered down, so that a local publisher must produce its own edition within 30 days, or else forfeit the protection of the ban. However, we are still reading novels by Don DeLillo and Philip Roth in expensive British editions, rather than in the cheaper, and original, US editions. The Government is now considering a report by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on the current situation with regard to parallel importation of books, but essentially it was, and remains, a system of intellectual censorship, supported by the very same people who denounce the GovernmentÕs lamentable attempts to censor Lolita or the internet. Similar laws limiting the importation of CDs were repealed by the Howard Government last year, leading once again to our repetition sceneøand to an immediate and significant price reduction.

Because the protection from imports enjoyed by workers in other sectors of the economy has been gradually wound back over recent years, those defending cultural protectionism have been at pains to distinguish it from garden-variety protectionism. As Mr Gudgeon informs us, culture is not the same as shoes or wheat. (Though, until reading his remarks, I had not realised that Italian shoes, or Swiss watches, or German cars were identical with all other shoes and watches and cars, and bore no identifiable qualities or characteristics whatsoever.) But cultural protectionists were not always so keen to distinguish themselves from other protectionist causesønot when those causes were still flourishing. Here is the ÔTVøMake It AustralianÕ Committee again, in 1970:

Without protection for industries essential to our economic balance, we could hardly be said to exist as a nation. We suggest that the cultural balance of Australia is equally important and that our national identity must be developed and safeguarded to the same extent as our economy.

Even today, hardline economic protectionists, such as One Nation and the Australian Democrats, are perfectly happy to identify cultural with economic protectionism, culture with wheat.

My view is that, in this regard at least, the hardline protectionists are being more honest than the special pleaders. When reform-minded politicians like Paul Keating and John Howard describe themselves as cultural nationalists, this again implies that cultural and economic protectionism are quite distinct areas. But this is not true at alløthey are better thought of as two sides of the same coin. For in cultural, just as in economic protectionism, vested interests that happen to have the ear of government are sheltered from competition, at the expense of the community as a whole: this is what those interests mean when they threaten to Ôlobby politicians to take control of the agenda.Õ

In addition, in what is a disturbing development indeed, hardline economic protectionists are now reforging links with cultural protectionism, and learning from its discourses. An article by Brendan Pearson in the Australian Financial Review last month explained how a range of producers, from Japanese rice-growers to EU beef farmers, are now claiming that their efforts, too, are central to the cultural identity of their regions, and should be protected from the effects of free-trade agreements and globalisation. We await news that our own cultural identity could not survive the eclipse of the Bonds y-front.

If we leave aside, for now, the argument about national identity, many of the arguments for cultural protectionism, as well as the strategies employed by it, have taken the same form as those for its economic first-cousin. A prominent example is the Ôinfant industryÕ argument: protectionism is required to get the nascent Australian cultural industries up and running. The problem here is that the Ôinfant industryÕ case only applies when a local producer can claim some comparative advantage, whereas these local producers claim a comparative disadvantage relative to overseas competitors with vastly larger local markets. Moreover, the infant industry argument, on its own logic, should lead to a progressive lowering of import restrictions as the industry grows in maturity and strength. In fact, as our publishing, film, music and television industries have gone from strength to strength, and even conquered overseas markets, the producers and workers in those industries have argued for more protection, not less.

Closely related to the infant industry argument is the doomsaying that suggests we wouldnÕt have a publishing/film/television/music/advertising industry without protectionism. Again, this is identical to the arguments for economic tariffs, but the success of Australian cultural industries, both here and in overseas markets, suggests that they would survive in an open environment. Although I discount as nonsense the claim that these industries have a special connection to our supposed collective identity, they do have the advantage over other producers of understanding the special tastes and preferences of Australians: if they cannot survive independently even with that going for them, then they are hardly candidates for ongoing government support.

This kind of doomsaying highlights the oddly contradictory position of the cultural nationalist in late 20th-century Australia: our culture is as good as anyoneÕs . . . yet it needs to be protected from outside competition if it is to survive; our popular arts appeal directly to our national identity and aspirations . . . yet the interest in those arts by those who supposedly possess this identity, the Australian public, is not sufficient to guarantee their viability.

Finally, no account of the link between cultural and economic protectionism could be complete without mentioning the role of trades unions, who have been as active in support of cultural import restrictions as they have been in support of tariffs. However, in an effort to make this look like something other than an industrial issue, cultural sector unions have presented themselves as acting in the interests of our national identityøthe guaranteeing of the employment of their members being a happy by-product. But if you look at the agreements that Actors Equity, for example, has struck with theatrical producers over the decades, limiting their rights to hire overseas actors, you will find that there is always an interesting financial footnote: foreign actors can be hired, but only if the Australian cast and crew on the relevant production are paid penalty rates. It seems that our precious identity can be diluted, but at a price. Perhaps the unions should be seen less as the guardians of our identity than as its toll-collectors.

Art, culture, and national identity

But what, precisely, are they collecting a toll on? The notion of national identity has gradually loomed larger and larger in our debates, largely, I think, because of the influence of the republican movement, which uses it constantly but, like everyone else, unreflectively. Because it serves various political interests, I think national or cultural identity has escaped serious examination, particularly of its historical origins, which are very much connected with the rise of European fascism in the first half of the 20th century, and in fascismÕs concern with identity-polluting forces such as the Jew, the gypsy, the cosmopolitan intellectual, and so on. If the idea of national identity survives in Australia today largely devoid of its fascist connotations, I still think dangers from that direction remain locked within it. They should certainly encourage us to question whether national identity can be a productive context for thinking about the role of the arts in a liberal society.

Nobody can deny that there are things that are identifiably Australian, but cultural and national identity is not about those things. Since only people could carry a cultural or national identity forward, it must inhere in some aspect of the self, perhaps like JungÕs idea of a collective unconscious. But really it strikes me as being more akin to an ideology. Australian culture has produced a succession of figures designed to represent the true or dinkum Australian: the bushman, the digger, the larrikin, and so on. None of these sorry figures has been genuinely representative, whatever that would mean, and it is a fine question whether they have achieved anything beyond advancing certain political and commercial interests, and making anyone who is not white, working-class, heterosexual, Anglo, and male feel that they are only compromised Australians. All these versions of national identity have, to my mind, about as much interest, and as much dialectical purchase, as a bumper-sticker I have seen around Sydney lately: ÔReal Aussies Drive Utes.Õ

If a national identity is merely an ideology, I question whether we should think of the arts as being in its service. The notion that art simply serves ideology is a Marxist idea, but it is not by any means the only idea about art. There are a range of more liberal notions that would have art exploring, for instance, personal or individual questions that concern people at a deeper level than their ideological conditioning. It is this view of art, I think, that David Malouf was talking about when he complained that we in Australia are too used to talking about national identity, and not used enough to talking about individual identity. Then there is the classic liberal-humanist position that sees art as being less about the things that divide the people of different nations, than about the things that join them together.

While it is true that the popular arts deal in national stereotypes, such as those I mentioned, it is hard to see why government policy-makers need to become involved in the process. First, this is precisely what makes the popular arts popular; and second, it is not obvious how any of us would be worse off if the production of national cliches were slowed. And as for the high arts: while they, too, sometimes reinforce national stereotypes, this is usually seen as the most expendable and least interesting part of their endeavour.

Attempting to regulate art so as to preserve a supposed national identity is akin to the cultural cleansing that horrifies us in the hands of Iranian Ayatollahs and Serbian warlords. Perhaps our own protectionists should reflect on just how similar to Ayatollahs they can sometimes sound. Patricia Edgar, the hyper-protectionist head of the Australian ChildrenÕs Television Foundation, told a conference in Manila a couple of years ago that she supported moves in Malaysia to ban Barbie dolls, which she said were inappropriate for Asian children. She also told the conference that the proliferation of childrenÕs television originating in the United States was Ôculturally subversiveÕ and ÔsinisterÕ, particularly as Ôthe exaltation of the rights of the individual over the common social good is gaining more and more support in the US.Õ

Personally I cannot see why the presence of Sesame Street on Australian screens should seem any more ÔsinisterÕ than the presence of Bananas in Pyjamas on American ones: in fact, I would have thought it was splendid that children in the two countries can enjoy each otherÕs programs. Perhaps what Ms Edgar really wants is for the part of Big Bird to be taken by an emu. Do her comments really reflect anything beyond the knee-jerk anti-Americanism of the Australian left? If this attitude has not long ago reached its use-by date, it will surely do so now that ÔAmericaÕ is little more than a name for a vertiginous mix-and-match of all the worldÕs cultures. Is Ricky Martin an example of US cultural imperialism, or of Latin American cultural imperialismøodd notion!øusing the United States as a staging-post? Or just of the inherent drive of culture to disrespect all borders, and make itself new by grabbing whatever suits it from heterogeneous traditions?

Perhaps, instead of listening endlessly to the commissars and Ayatollahs on this question, we should listen instead to someone who has suffered conspicuously at their hands. Here is Salman Rushdie, writing recently on the anti-globalisation forces that want to preserve Ôthe Indian-ness of India, the French-ness of FranceÕ:

Do cultures actually exist as separate, pure, defensible entities? Is not melange, adulteration, impurity, pick ÔnÕ mix at the heart of the idea of the modern, and hasnÕt it been that way for most of this all-shook-up century? DoesnÕt the idea of pure cultures, in urgent need of being kept free from alien contamination, lead us inexorably towards apartheid, toward ethnic cleansing, towards the gas chamber?

Conclusions and suggestions

Current prospects for cultural liberalisation do not seem strong. Protectionism has always been able to rely on an unholy alliance of the far right and the far left, as we saw in the debate on CD import deregulation, where the two strongest parliamentary voices raised against the move were those of Natasha Stott Despoja and Pauline Hanson. The Labor Party is in full reverse thrust on the issue, as it is on many others: Mr Beazley has vowed to overturn the CD decision and, in addition, refuse visas to ÔforeignÕ musical performers who do not undertake to tour with an Australian support-act.

The Howard Government has also been true to form on this issue, showing that it wants to be a liberal government, but is not quite sure how. The CD decision, despite the industryÕs fears that ÔpiracyÕ would rule the high seas once again, achieved more for the cause of art in Australia, at a stroke, than all of Paul KeatingÕs diligent stroking of Ôthe yartsÕ, so loyally repaid at election time. But a recent increase in the Australian music quota for radio was hailed by Senator Alston as a triumph. Clearly, the test will come with the GovernmentÕs response to the new ACCC report on the book market. The Government should do what I strongly suspect the report recommends, and repeal the 30-day import ban immediately. It will have enormous trouble getting such a move past the warlords and Ayatollahs in the Senate, but cultural and intellectual freedom are causes well worth fighting for.

Liberal-minded commentators need to turn the publicÕs attention away from the imaginary terrors of Captain Hook, waving his cutlass and threatening us all with the plank unless we buy his pirated Korean CDs, and towards the real, practical costs of cultural protectionism: the cost to consumers, to students and educators, to broadcasting licensees, and to the taxpayer, who must fund the bureaucracies that patrol the increasingly notional borders of our culture. We need to point to things like the dramatic fall in book prices that attended import deregulation in the UK. As a teacher in the humanities, I know very well that the exorbitant cost of books in Australia, and the delays in the arrival of foreign books, have been a blight on teaching and research. Are these not forms of culture worth protecting?

Australian cultural producers, meanwhile, need to stop sounding like Chardonnay Hansonites, quit thinking of new ways to keep ÔforeignersÕ from our door, and use all of the advantages they have to plug into the new world market for English-speaking culture. By doing so, they shall ensure their future much more securely than by relying on categories like ÔlocalÕ and ÔforeignÕ that no longer seem to have much tread left on them.

The internationalisation of the Australian economy over the last twentyyears has improved the material prosperity of Australians. If this reformist spirit can now be applied to the cultural domain, over the protests of vested interests, then the imaginative and intellectual prosperity of Australians will be similarly enhanced. And if the free and uninhibited exchange of goods and services among the people of the world is a fine ideal, then the free exchange of cultureøof ideas, stories, sounds, and imagesøis surely an even finer one.

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