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The article sounds more like a general call for "ideas," as opposed to a specific government agenda or action plan.
As to geo restrictions, it's based less on government importation policies and more on the author's contracts. From what I understand, authors rarely grant one company all international ebook rights -- nor is doing so necessarily in their best interests.
E.g. an American publisher probably doesn't know the first thing about the AU or UK markets. The US publisher may also be unwilling to translate the book into multiple languages, especially since it won't know how to market the book abroad -- or even have a clue where, or if, the title is a good fit. (A book that's a hit in France is not guaranteed to be a hit in Spain or Germany.)
Retailers will also still need to be set up properly to do business in Australia. I'm not sure of the specifics, but presumably they need to pay some type of sales taxes, perhaps VAT, probably corporate taxes, and so forth.
There isn't much the AU government can do about all this, except clear some hurdles for those foreign publishers and retailers who do want to sell ebooks directly to the Australian public.
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