BLOW FOR PRINT AS NATION'S CLUBS CALL TIME ON PAPER

Print has taken a hit, with the nation’s 6500 clubs now allowed to communicate AGM and other notices with their 15 million members through digital channels only, a move which axes a swathe of regular print jobs.

The new ruling, brought in under the guise of Covid, has been something the clubs have been lobbying to have for some time. It initially lasts until April next year, but the clubs are confident it will be made permanent.

Until now clubs have been required to communicate AGM and other notices with their members on paper, but despite them having a disproportionate number of elderly members, and the non-tech savvy, amongst their ranks, they have won the right to dump print as a required means of communication.

For printers around the country the move away from print will be a blow. The big clubs tend to buy their print though a specialist broker, who then places it with one of the major printers. However, smaller clubs, and those in regional and rural areas, tend to use local printers. That work is now gone, and will not be coming back, effectivley meaning print has lost regular work from 6500 customers.

The new laws allow clubs to send notices to members by email or text, even when they have not consented to it. The email would include an attachment, the text a hyperlink. If members have not given any digital addresses they will receive a postcard advising them how to access the notice.

Clubs Australia worked with the Australian Treasury Department to develop the legislation, with the clubs claiming printed notices were “unnecessary and costly”. The notices have now gone the way of other products such as printed annual reports, airline tickets and street directories, and increasingly, newspapers, in switching out of print, leaving printers needing to pivot into new areas.