The Labor government is pressing forward with its long-flagged plan to make global tech giants pay for Australian journalism, unveiling a proposed “news bargaining incentive” that will financially penalise platforms unless they strike commercial deals with local media companies.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, a Treasury discussion paper released Thursday confirms the government wants to introduce new charges on major social media platforms and search engines, calculated as a share of each platform’s total Australian revenue. Crucially, those charges can be eliminated entirely if tech companies sign agreements with news publishers, with every dollar paid to media partners reducing the fee by $1.50 until it reaches $0.
The design of the scheme is set to make paying for news the most attractive financial option. It replaces the former Coalition government’s 2021 News Media Bargaining Code, which saw Google and Meta sign more than 30 commercial deals valued at $200 to $250 million annually, including around $70 million from Meta alone.
But the system began to falter last year when Meta walked away from its agreements, triggering a fresh wave of uncertainty and political pressure. Labor committed to a replacement scheme late last year but temporarily halted work amid concerns that any move seen as punishing US companies could spark trade retaliation.
The Treasury paper said that the aim is for the new scheme to have a similar financial effect to the previous one. Because the government intends to make the penalties 50 per cent more expensive than paying for news directly, Treasury modelling shows tech giants would face charges worth 2.25 per cent of their Australian revenue unless they sign deals equivalent to 1.5 per cent of their revenue.
Importantly, payments to media companies will be tax-deductible, while penalties paid to the government will not be. Any money raised will be passed directly to Australian media organisations.
“The intention of the news bargaining incentive is that the government will collect no revenue from it,” the paper noted.
The rules will apply to social platforms and search engines earning more than $250 million annually in Australia. The government is still seeking feedback on a potential start date after initially signalling it wanted the scheme backdated to January 1, 2025.
Communications Minister Anika Wells and Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino said the charges would apply to all big platforms and could not be avoided if a tech company withdrew news content from its platform.
“The incentive ensures large digital platforms contribute to the sustainability of news and journalism in Australia,” the pair said.
For media businesses facing a challenging ad market, the policy represents the most significant potential boost since the original bargaining code.
Nine Entertainment chief executive Matt Stanton said, “Journalism matters to Australians because our democracy matters to all of us. At the heart of this is setting the rules that say to the big tech and social platforms that they too have both a commercial and a societal role to play in all of this.”
Free TV Australia, representing Seven, Nine, Ten, WIN, and Imparja, strongly backed the consultation process.
“Global tech platforms enjoy enormous market power and reap massive benefits from Australian news content–it’s time they paid their fair share. Local journalism is essential to our democracy. When platforms walk away from paying for news, Australian communities lose. This consultation is our opportunity to get the settings right and ensure this scheme delivers real support for the trusted news services Australians rely on every day,” said Free TV CEO Bridget Fair.
Free TV also noted that Australian broadcasters invested $408 million in trusted news in FY24, including $35.2 million in regional journalism, while Meta stopped paying for Australian news content in March 2024.
The government is still considering how payments should be distributed between large publishers and smaller outlets, with options including proportional caps or extra incentives for deals that favour small and regional media. Consultation closes on December 19.
