Public Lending Rights - Where are we up to? by Sherryl Clark

Public Lending Rights - Where are we up to?

As one of the new NZSA reps on the PLR committee, and having the wonderful experiences

of also being the recipient of PLR and ELR in Australia (as a dual citizen), I was keen to see

what was happening and what we could change, for the better.

The depressing answer is – not much, and especially not for children’s writers and

illustrators. The main issue for us in the children’s book world, I think, is that school libraries

are not included in the library book surveys carried out. As there is no separate Educational

Lending Right scheme, like there is in Australia, it’s not a surprise that many children’s

authors and illustrators feel pretty disgruntled about PLR.

The biggest problem, I discovered, is that PLR is still operating under the original legislation

passed in Parliament in 2008, and this legislation is very limiting in its scope. It applied

originally to mainly analogue publishing and is now way out of date, given e-books and

audiobooks. But the only way to change PLR legislation, I’ve been told, is for a government

minister to take up the issue and push for changes to it through parliamentary processes.

Given who is in government now, good luck with that.

From my perspective, part of that problem is also that you would think the Minster for Arts,

Culture and Heritage and their department would be running PLR. But it is under the

jurisdiction of the National Library, and the Library sits under the Minister of Internal

Affairs. Confused yet? I sure was.

Also on my list of issues with PLR is the threshold of a minimum 50 books to qualify for a

payment. Given that NZ really hasn’t got a huge number of libraries, and not all libraries are

surveyed, it can be pretty hard to reach 50. The lack of funding means payments are stuck.

There is no increase according to the cost of living, for example.

There are other issues: for example, in Australia, publishers also get small payments for

books, which helps the industry survive. Imagine if publishers in NZ got PLR, and how that

would inject much-needed money into producing more books and taking more risks. But with

no increase in funding for anyone, that’s even more unlikely.

If you want to know more, read the National Library information, and make sure to read the

Review that was published in 2020 (link on the page). The recommendations in the Review

make for extremely interesting reading, especially as they are all sensible and would make

PLR much more of a genuine support for NZ writers. https://natlib.govt.nz/publishers-and-

authors/public-lending-right-for-new-zealand-authors/review-of-the-public-lending-right-for-

new-zealand-authors

(This is not an official report, this is my perspective and experiences so far, finding out about

how PLR works and what the current roadblocks are.)