Today’s Focus

Australia’s parliament passed the News Bargaining Incentive on Thursday, creating a charge on digital platforms with Australian revenues above roughly 250 million Australian dollars that host news content but refuse to pay publishers for it, according to Reuters.

The law is designed to replace and reinforce the 2021 News Media Bargaining Code, which pushed Google and Meta to sign commercial deals worth an estimated 200 million Australian dollars a year with local outlets. Meta announced in 2024 it would not renew those agreements when they expired, prompting the government to act, Reuters reported.

Under the new measure, platforms that decline to strike deals will owe an annual charge that Treasurer Jim Chalmers has estimated at about 215 million U.S. dollars in aggregate, according to MLex. Companies can offset most of that amount by signing or renewing commercial arrangements with Australian news businesses.

The law covers search engines, social media services, and video-sharing platforms above the revenue threshold. Google, Meta, TikTok owner ByteDance, and Microsoft are the firms most likely to fall within scope, MLex reported.

Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino said the measure was needed because news publishers had lost bargaining power and public-interest journalism was in decline, according to Content + Technology, which covered the parliamentary vote.

The bill passed with support from the governing Labor Party and the Greens. It comes as U.S. Republicans and Trump administration officials have publicly criticized Australia’s approach, calling it discriminatory against American tech firms, Politico reported.

Australia’s competition regulator will administer the scheme, and the finance ministry will set the final rate later this year. Publishers welcomed the passage, while Meta said it was reviewing the legislation and had not announced whether it would resume payments, Reuters reported.

The Debate

Supporters argue

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the law corrects a market imbalance in which platforms profit from journalism they do not fund. He argued the incentive structure gives companies a choice: pay publishers directly or pay the government, according to MLex.

Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino said the measure protects “public-interest journalism” at a moment when local newsrooms are closing across Australia, Content + Technology reported. The Greens backed the bill on the grounds that concentrated digital advertising power has drained revenue from reporting that democracies rely on.

Publisher groups, including the industry body representing major Australian mastheads, endorsed the vote as a “win for Australian journalism,” according to Content + Technology. They contend Meta’s 2024 decision to walk away from deals showed a voluntary code was not enforceable.

Supporters point to the roughly 200 million Australian dollars a year the 2021 code delivered to local outlets, funds they say sustained hundreds of reporting jobs. Reuters noted the new levy is calibrated to preserve that flow even if platforms refuse to negotiate.

Critics argue

House Republicans and Trump administration allies described the framework as a “shakedown” of U.S. companies, according to Politico. Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, said the measure singles out American firms and could trigger retaliation under Section 301 trade authorities.

Meta has argued that most users do not come to Facebook or Instagram for news and that the company should not be forced to subsidize an industry it does not depend on, Reuters reported. The company previously threatened to remove news content from its Australian platforms rather than pay.

An inkl report cited Trump allies who said the code exports a “link tax” model that other governments could copy, exposing U.S. tech firms to compounding levies worldwide. Critics also warn that smaller and digital-native outlets could be shut out if platforms concentrate deals with a few large publishers.

Free-expression advocates cited by MLex questioned whether tying payments to hosting news creates incentives for platforms to demote or block journalism to avoid liability.

What the experts say

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University found in its 2024 Digital News Report that direct traffic from Facebook to news publishers fell sharply in markets where Meta scaled back news distribution, complicating claims that platform payments track platform benefit.

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, formerly director of the Reuters Institute, has written that bargaining codes tend to deliver most funds to a small number of large incumbents rather than to the local and investigative outlets in steepest decline.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s 2019 Digital Platforms Inquiry, which laid the groundwork for the original code, documented that Google and Facebook captured a majority of Australian online advertising revenue while publishers absorbed the collapse in print income.

A 2023 study by the Judith Neilson Institute estimated the 2021 code funded roughly 400 to 500 journalism jobs in Australia. Analysts at the Poynter Institute have noted that Canada’s similar Online News Act prompted Meta to block news links entirely, an outcome Australian regulators are now trying to prevent through the levy structure.

By the Numbers

215 million: approximate U.S. dollar value of the annual levy on non-paying platforms, according to MLex.

250 million: Australian-dollar revenue threshold that brings a platform into scope, per Reuters.

200 million: Australian dollars per year paid to publishers under the 2021 code before Meta withdrew, according to Reuters.

2024: the year Meta announced it would not renew its Australian news deals, per Content + Technology.

400 to 500: journalism jobs estimated to have been funded by the original code, according to a Judith Neilson Institute analysis.

2019: year the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission published its Digital Platforms Inquiry that recommended the bargaining framework.

Section 301: U.S. trade statute Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) cited as a possible response, according to Politico.

Sources

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