'Australian writers love comic exaggeration. Presumably. What else can we make of their sustained hyperbole throughout the Productivity Commission inquiry into restrictions on the parallel importation of books (PIR)? To suffer impeccable stylists like Tim Winton and publishers as savvy as Louise Adler hysterically touting this dinosaurian trade barrier as their only cultural defence against populist barbarian invasion has been enough to suspend your belief in suspended disbelief. Drop restrictions as the Commission recommends, Winton warned, and surrender again to stultifying literary occupation!'