The committee responsible for investigating price hikes in IT products on behalf of the Australian Federal government has handed down their reported findings from the inquiry, and the results appear to be incredibly consumer-sided.

The report is the result of a process that was initiated last year by Labor MP Ed Husic, who at the time said "For too long, businesses and consumers have asked: why does it sometimes cost up to 80 per cent more to simply download software in Australia compared to overseas".

Federal Parliament reportedly received the report late last week, and you can now read the full 150 page document over at aph.gov.au (thanks Delimiter), which awesomely even notes the affectionate term 'Australia Tax' in its foreword:

Evidence presented to this inquiry left little doubt about the extent and depth of concern about IT pricing in Australia. Consumers are clearly perplexed, frustrated and angered by the experience of paying higher prices for IT products than consumers in comparable countries.

High IT prices make it harder for Australian businesses to compete internationally and can be a significant barrier to access and participation for disadvantaged Australians (in particular Australians with a disability).

Based on the evidence received over a 12 month inquiry, the Committee has concluded that in many cases, the price differences for IT products cannot be explained by the cost of doing business in Australia. Particularly when it comes to digitally delivered content, the Committee concluded that many IT products are more expensive in Australia because of regional pricing strategies implemented by major vendors and copyright holders. Consumers often refer to these pricing strategies as the ‘Australia tax’.

There's a huge amount of meat investigating the causes and affects of IT product price hikes throughout the epic document, videogame software and hardware included, but most interesting are its proposed remedies, which advocate ending geoblocking --the process of restricting digitally delivered content based on the geographical location of a connecting user's Internet address--, as well reviewing the TPM sections of the Copyright Act, and loosening other restrictions around parallel importing, and perhaps the most extreme: legislating the right of resale for digital content.

Whether any of these recommendations will or can actually be addressed by parliament, when they are so dependant on the will of big internationally-located companies remains to be seen, but at the very least, the report's findings should at least serve as somewhat of a moral victory for anyone feeling uneasy about grey-importing or using VPNs and the like to dodge geoblocks.