The proliferation of awards does bring into question the whole purpose of awards. The nature of literary awards is that they bring about benefits not only to the winners but also to the benefactors The endowment of an award (depending on how well the award is administered) can provide tremendous publicity and kudos for the persons or organizations giving the awards. But what are the aims of awards? If they are there to reward excellence, well and good, but often there is considerable debate about the merits of judges’ decisions. Conversely, if winners of awards are by authors who have already achieved some degree of critical and commercial success do they really need the money? One cannot help but wonder whether judges are influenced in their decision by previous assessments or knowledge of an author’s work and that the odds of an unknown writer winning are unlikely.

I've always thought that the major benefit of awards was that they inspired in the public a degree of confidence in books, and in Australian books in particular. That other writers benefited by the interest in books and writing that awards generated and therefore it didn’t matter that whenever Peter Carey or Jessica Anderson published a book, it would inevitably win that year's crop of prizes.

With the proliferation of similar awards, the impact of each award must necessarily be lessened, and so the air of excitement isn’t there any more. One suspects that the money may be better spent helping Queensland writers and publishers. Awards seem to be becoming a cheap, and easy, way to demonstrate a commitment to writing, but not necessarily effective.

I went to the Adelaide Festival this year. The Festival has developed a special character of its own, perhaps the most distinctive of which is its emphasis on issues which relate to people involved in the writing and publishing industry.

But it is this character that makes the Festival work and achieve some sort of relevance. For Australian writers it provided a chance to see how the industry works; how decisions are made; and to perhaps better understand the forces that control their livelihood. It also gave them a chance to meet publishers and agents. You had the feeling that deals were being made and broken and something important was happening. And the Adelaide populace came in droves.

But as a forum for finding solutions to problems, such festivals can only achieve this indirectly. In the panel on publishing, English publishers, Liz Calder from Bloomsbury and Robert McCrum from Faber, took opposite views towards the question of whether Australian writers should be published in Australia by Australian publishers or from outside the country.

Of course the whole issue of Australian publishing, is about ownership and distribution and it is a problem that is never addressed because we are too small and because there are too many vested interests. A culturally (and ultimately economically) healthy publishing industry requires a diversity of editorial and publishing decisions. Whether a small nation such as Australia can support such an industry, and whether cultural aspirations or aims can be reconciled within the present publishing structure is another question. It is safer to spend our money on a Year of the Reader.