The House of Representatives Infrastructure and Communications Committee has today released its report based on its extensive inquiry into IT pricing in Australia. Specifically, the inquiry investigated claims that Australian consumers pay significantly higher prices for IT products, including games, than consumers overseas.

“The committee found that big IT companies and copyright holders charge Australians, on average, an extra 50 per cent, a practice consumers call the ‘Australia Tax’”, said committee chair Nick Champion MP in a statement . “High IT prices can have significant impacts given the critical role IT plays in many areas of Australian life.”“While companies should remain free to set their own prices, the committee took the view that there are a number of ways in which Australia can act to increase competition in IT markets, which should reduce prices over time.”The 150-page report, which includes an extensive amount of consumer submissions, industry responses and a number of key findings and recommendations, covers a lot of ground.On the topic of games, the report notes that – according to a submission from Australian consumer watchdog Choice – a comparison of the prices of 20 recent and new-release games sold on EB Games’ Australian website against the same company’s US website showed only one game was at parity with the US. The majority of games were between 40 per cent to 90 per cent more expensive on the Australian website. The submission also illustrated the worst price differentials on Steam can be 200 to 300 per cent more expensive in Australia.The report also notes that the price differences between digital games in Australia and overseas can be so large that it can be actually cheaper to purchase a physical copy of new release games from a UK-based online store and have it shipped 15,000km to Australia.The committee explored a list of reasons proposed by the industry for IT pricing differences, including differences in advertised prices , relative market size, wages and occupancy costs, and several others. The Committee acknowledged that some confusion exists due to differences in how taxes are communicated in advertised prices (in Australia, advertised prices must include GST, while in the United States advertised prices do not include sales taxes), and also conceded that there are factors specific to the Australian market which can make it a higher-cost environment for IT vendors compared with other markets around the world (“Australia’s population is comparatively small and spread over a large geographical area, which means that higher distribution, wage and occupancy costs must be covered by smaller unit sales than in a market like the US”). However, the Committee concluded that “in many instances these higher costs cannot, even cumulatively, explain the price differences consumers experience in relation to many IT products, and especially those delivered via the internet.”In response to the findings the Committee has put forward a variety of recommendations, including relaxing parallel import restrictions and amending the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) to “clarify and secure consumers’ rights to circumvent technological protection measures that control geographic market segmentation” to put the kybosh on geo-blocking.When and/or if the government will set about implementing any the recommendations stemming from the inquiry is unknown at this stage.You can access the full report here

Luke is Games Editor at IGN AU. You can find him on IGN here or on Twitter @MrLukeReilly , or chat with him and the rest of the Australian team by joining the IGN Australia