Our federal parliament has called three of the top American IT companies to appear before its inquiry into pricing through formal subpoenas
"Adobe, Apple and Microsoft are just a few firms that have continually defied the public's call for answers and refused to appear before the IT Pricing Inquiry. While television and computer prices fell 14 per cent according to the latest Consumer Price Index Figures, there's still a long way to go - with some estimates suggesting that Australian prices are up to 60 per cent higher than the US."
Federal Member for Chifley, Ed Husic, told Gizmodo Australia that he was disappointed with the effort his committee had to go to to get the companies to cooperate with an inquiry into why their products are priced so much higher in Australia, compared to the US.
In May 2012, Ed Husic called for help to form an inquiry into the pricing of technology goods and services in Australia, an issue that's been becoming more and more apparent as we move further into the digital age. All three companies had all run campaigns to mark up the prices further in Australia in the last few years, and public outrage and complaint has fuelled the inquiry to the stage it's reached today. The industry has refused any public response to the issue, further fuelling the fire, and in the federal government has now issued formal subpoenas to the companies, calling for an appearance before the inquiry on 22 March 2013. Failure to appear will result in our government taking further legal action.
It's not something that's always been an issue, with the Australian Dollar being valued lower than the US in past years, but now with the two currencies drawing closer to equality, the price differences are becoming staggeringly apparent. One of the easiest places to identify this problem within the market is in media and gaming. Brand new titles in the US retail at around $50 - $60 US while in Australia we see prices as high as $90 to $110. The PS3 when it was first released had a retail price of about $599 US where as Australia saw a ridiculous $1000 price tag on the product.
In an age where more media products are becoming downloadble and accessible through the Internet, it makes no sense that a company can charge different pricing for the exact same product and service. We, the public, wont see any effect or change in the overall pricing just yet, but companies are already taking note of the issue. Adobe has already cut some of its Australian prices on its products, bringing it closer to the US value, but this isn't across the range, being only set on a few products.
"These firms should have cooperated and been prepared to be more open and transparent about their pricing approaches. In what's probably the first time anywhere in the world, these IT firms are now being called by the Australian Parliament to explain why they price their products so much higher in Australia compared to the US." Ed Husic
-Welsh 14/02/13
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