It’s my pleasure to rise and speak on the news media bargaining incentive package of bills. I start by saying that the coalition supports a strong, sustainable and independent Australian news media sector. Quality journalism, Australian journalism, journalists telling Australian stories—that is one of the foundations of our democracy. It informs public debate. It holds governments and institutions to account. It gives voice to communities which might otherwise go unheard, and it ensures Australians have access to accurate, reliable and diverse sources of information. Of course, this is particularly important in regional Australia, where the local newspaper, radio station or digital outlet may be the only local source of detailed reporting on issues which matter to those communities.
This package of bills before the parliament establishes the news media bargaining incentive scheme, following the Albanese Labor government’s decision to walk away from the coalition’s world-first news media bargaining code. As we consider these bills today, it’s very important to be cognisant of the work of the coalition in holding the digital platforms to account—ensuring that they could not publish Australian news content on their platforms without providing appropriate compensation. It was the coalition that first recognised this growing imbalance between the global digital platforms and Australian news publishers. It was the coalition which commissioned the ACCC to investigate the problem and to support our work to come up with a solution. When a voluntary scheme was first proposed in 2019 and the digital platforms did not cooperate, this led to the news media bargaining code. That was incredibly important in bringing Meta and Google to the table to conclude more than 30 commercial agreements reportedly worth around $250 million annually to Australian news organisations. But I have to make this very important point. In April 2024, Meta—pretty disgracefully, I might add—walked away from the news media bargaining code. It abandoned its obligations, in breach of the law. It threatened to take news off its digital platforms: Facebook and Meta.
This could have been resolved. This could have been resolved in a number of ways. The code could have been amended, and this was very much the view of former ACCC chair Rod Sims. It could have been amended by way of a deeming provision. Irrespective of whether or not an applicable or relevant digital platform published news, the code could have been amended to deem that the digital platform indeed was publishing news, to stop them playing games, pulling tricks and compromising our Australian media sector. Unfortunately, the government decided not to try and bring forward sensible amendments to the code in light of Meta’s reprehensible conduct.
That was in April 2024. It’s now August 2026. It’s taken more than two years for this to be resolved. In those two-plus years, the Australian news media sector has really suffered because Meta walked away and abandoned its responsibilities. It breached the law. Of course, the government did nothing. So, in the case of Meta, these deals were abandoned. Then, in the case of Google—Google delivered around 70 per cent of the total number of commercial deals under the news media bargaining code—those deals continued on to a large degree, but they were allowed to wilt on the vine. That’s not good enough.
If there is an issue, Australian media is so important to our democracy and to our rule of law. The viability of our Australian media organisations, our newsrooms and our journalists is critical. They are under increasing pressure as more and more advertising dollars are drained from Australian media onto digital platforms. It is deeply regrettable that it has taken so long for these bills to come into the parliament. There was so much mucking around. I don’t know what the communications minister and the Assistant Treasurer were doing for more than two years, but I will say one thing: the news media organisations have paid a very heavy price. They have lost very substantial amounts of revenue, and that is simply not good enough.
We now have this package of bills: the news bargaining incentive scheme. This delivers a number of different components. I’m very pleased to say that, after a lot of advocacy from the coalition, digital platforms will face a 2.75 per cent charge based on Australian digital advertising revenue if they avoid making direct commercial agreements with Australian news media organisations. That was 2.5 per cent, and, as the Assistant Treasurer, Mr Mulino, explained, that would deliver about $200 million to $250 million in total revenue, by way of those commercial agreements, to the Australian media sector. That’s a big concern because, although they’re commercial and confidential, we know these deals were at least $250 million back in 2021. How could the government deliver a scheme that would take Australian news media organisations backwards?
Treasury estimated that the total amount to be captured would be between $200 million and $250 million. More than $250 million per annum was captured back in 2021. From our point of view, that was unacceptable, and there was quite a bit of cage rattling behind the scenes in relation to increasing the charge. I am pleased that an amendment went through the House yesterday, which was agreed to by the coalition, and that charge is now 2.75 per cent.
Platforms must complete at least eight commercial deals to meet the scheme’s conditions and offset liabilities that would otherwise apply. I think that’s been a welcome change. I do note the very positive response from the likes of Country Press Australia, which represents many small rural and regional media organisations. They were concerned about the original proposal for only four media organisations to be included in this scheme. This is an important change. When the exposure draft was first released, there was a lot of criticism, and it just again goes to show that the government did not do its homework on the consultation. The fact that it would seek to cut out bodies such as Country Press Australia, which represents so many important and vital small rural and regional media organisations and the like, was pretty regrettable. That now, of course, means that a much larger number of news organisations are potentially eligible to enter into a deal with the digital platforms.
The bills have also reinstated the pre-deal cap of 25 per cent, meaning no single publisher deal can offset more than 25 per cent of the platform’s total levy obligation. If any digital platform decides to do a dirty trick, like Meta did in April 2024, they will be required to pay a charge, the charge of 2.75 per cent, which cannot be offset, so they will be required to pay more money—unless we see more fun and games, and I’m not confident that won’t happen. Those funds that are collected will be distributed in accordance with a statutory formula based on the number of editorial staff at a news organisation. We would like to see the definition of editorial staff expanded to include those who primarily fulfil the roles of providing commentary or opinion because, often at news organisations, very senior journalists take on the role of opinion writers as well as reporting straight news. So we would certainly like to see that definition changed. As part of this distribution scheme, five per cent will be offset for Australian Associated Press and five per cent for small publishers by way of grants. I think the other pleasing part of the scheme is that, apart from Google and Meta—and, of course, Meta has both Instagram and Facebook—we expect that, given the threshold that applies, which is a minimum of $250 million, TikTok will be captured as will Microsoft’s LinkedIn because professional social media platforms are now also captured.
It’s been a pretty tawdry journey to get to this point. It’s been very regrettable that these bills have taken so long to be resolved. Unfortunately, even when the exposure draft was released, it did not cut the mustard. That has now been corrected not just in the bills that came into the parliament. Again, more work was required to lift the charge, and that amendment went through the House yesterday, as I mentioned.
I do want to note we are concerned about the distribution of grants to media organisations. We raised concerns because of similar media grants programs, particularly those awarded by the Department of Home Affairs. We uncovered that a number of those grants had gone to media organisations which platformed extremists and undermined social cohesion. So I am very concerned about the track record of the government. There’s also concern about journalism grants under other funding programs. The Journalism Assistance Fund made grants available to advertising agencies, events companies and, frankly, media organisations that were not in the business of news and public interest journalism. There was a lot of rubbery due diligence done by the government in relation to some of these grants. There was also a very specific decision to exclude News Corporation and News24. I think that was disappointing because they also have many important newspapers and other media outlets right across this country, so that was most regrettable. So, when it comes to trusting this government to deliver grant funding with integrity and appropriate due diligence, I certainly don’t have a high degree of confidence. I would trust and hope that, in relation to any other media grants that might be distributed through this scheme, the appropriate due diligence will be completed.
Let me just reiterate that the coalition remains committed to ensuring those who derive significant value from Australian news contribute fairly to its production. We’re not going to let big tech off the hook. We’re simply not going to do that. That is what drove the coalition’s world-first news media bargaining code. We were sick of seeing the digital platforms ripping off the news content, the hard work of Australian journalists and producers and subeditors and photographers and everyone else who worked so hard to deliver Australians their news.
This is an important step forward in remedying the very significant vacuum over the last two years. We support funding for journalism, particularly regional journalism, which is vital for our democracy. We support a framework which encourages genuine commercial agreements rather than just dependence on government funding mechanisms. We are strongly committed to supporting Australian journalism and the importance of Australian stories being told by an Australian media sector, and I do hope that this package of bills does deliver what it’s intended to do