Labor revives plans to force Meta, Google, TikTok to pay for news
Make us a preferred source
Make us a preferred source on Google
The news: The Albanese government will give the world’s largest tech firms and local media companies just one month to give their feedback to a revived regulatory effort to force Meta, Google and TikTok to pay for news.
The context: Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino kicked off a hotly anticipated consultation process on the government’s News Bargaining Incentive on Thursday, nearly a year after the plans were announced by his predecessor.
The policy was pitched by former assistant treasurer Stephen Jones as a charge and offset scheme designed to incentivise tech companies with annual turnover in excess of $250 million to strike deals with news publishers to offset a charge.
In a consultation paper, Treasury suggested a deduction rate of 150% of eligible expenditure on an incentive rate of 2.25% of revenue, in a bid to encourage tech firms to strike deals with news publishers worth about 1.5% of their revenue.
The policy will capture Big Tech companies operating in Australia regardless of whether they carry news on their services, after Meta struck news from its platforms in Canada in response to similar regulation.
It also raises the possibility that platforms will not be able to offset their charge by simply striking major deals with the biggest media operators in the Australian market.
In 2021, the bulk of the roughly $200 million in news deals Meta and Google struck with news publishers flowed to Nine Entertainment, News Corp, and Seven West Media.
On Thursday, Treasury floated three types of expenditure that tech companies will be able to invest to offset the levy, which took effect on 1 January this year.
The first would be commercial deals struck with news publishers. But expenditure booked through an “arbitrated agreement” reached under the Incentive’s predecessor, the News Media Bargaining Code would also count, as would expenditure incurred through indirect support of public interest journalism, such as “funding grants or initiatives”.
What they said: “The incentive ensures large digital platforms contribute to the sustainability of news and journalism in Australia,” Mulino said in a joint statement with Communications Minister Anika Wells on Thursday morning.
“It reinforces the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code introduced in 2021. It also complements the News Media Assistance Program (News MAP), which supports public interest journalism, particularly at the regional and local levels.
“The incentive is not intended to raise revenue for the Government. Instead, it encourages commercial arrangements between major digital platforms and news publishers by providing a generous deduction for eligible deals.”
