Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta earned an estimated $5 billion in Australian revenue in 2022. Under the new plan it could pay $75 million to publishers and avoid the charge entirely, or face a $112.5 million bill from the Australian Taxation Office.Credit: Bloomberg
The former competition watchdog chief said the stakes were existential for Australian democracy.
“Media is just fundamental to a well-functioning democracy. You know, it’s not called the fourth estate for nothing,” he said. “The platforms are basically stealing the content without paying for it.”
Alex Wake, president of the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia, echoed those concerns. “It’s really frightening to consider just how few people have such control over information right now,” Wake said.
“I’m genuinely worried by the lack of information options now available in most communities, not just here in Australia but in many other parts of the world.”
Tim Duggan, chairman of the Digital Publishers Alliance, said the approach corrected flaws in the original code. “One of them was that there was previously no recourse for platforms like Meta withdrawing from news, so by fixing this obvious flaw it’s taken the bullet out of the gun they had pointed at our news industry,” he told this masthead.
MEAA chief executive Erin Madeley welcomed the government’s move but stressed the need for transparency. “This scheme must be accompanied by greater transparency and guarantees that any revenue that is raised is invested back into journalism – not be used to reward shareholders or inflate company profits,” Madeley said.
Microsoft said the company has a long-term commitment to Australia’s economic success and national security.Credit: Bloomberg
“MEAA also looks forward to working with the government to ensure the initiative enables small, local and rural media outlets to benefit from agreements.”
However, Sims raised concerns about implementation time, warning that Google’s deals under the existing code largely expire in the middle of 2026.
“We just need to get moving with this because the Google deals largely expire in the middle of next year,” Sims said. “We don’t want people starting to have to fire journalists just because all this isn’t wrapped up.”
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He said legislation needed to be passed “very, very early in 2026”, adding: “The government first announced this a year ago. We need to get on with it very quickly. It cannot wait.”
Sims also expressed concern that platforms aren’t required to negotiate with all eligible media companies under the new proposal, unlike the original code.
Questions remain about how payments will be distributed between large and small publishers, with Treasury proposing proportional caps or greater relief for smaller media companies. Public consultation closes on December 19, with the government indicating it wants to backdate the scheme to January 1, 2025.
Microsoft said it would “continue to engage constructively on the important issue of addressing the bargaining power imbalance between large digital platforms and Australian news businesses”.
A Meta spokeswoman said: “We will review the proposal, and look forward to participating in the government’s consultation process.”
A Google spokesman said, “Since 2020, we have signed agreements with 88 Australian publishers, representing 226 media outlets across the country. In the last year alone, we’ve renewed agreements with 60 publishers and we remain the only technology company that has maintained commercial partnerships with the Australian news industry since 2020.
“Beyond these commercial partnerships, we’ve supported the Australian news industry for two decades and continue to actively support and provide initiatives for the industry’s digital transformation.”
When asked what would happen if Meta removed news from its platform as it did in Canada, Sims was blunt: “Under this new law, they’d still have to pay.”
He added: “If you’re not going to follow Australian laws, then you shouldn’t be here. These are the laws of the land, and anybody here has to abide by them.”
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