Australia moves to close loophole in Media Bargaining Code with new digital tax

The Australian government has intensified its efforts to compel global technology giants to compensate local publishers for news content.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Wednesday that Meta, Google, and TikTok will be given a final opportunity to negotiate commercial content deals with domestic news organisations.

Should they refuse, the firms will face a compulsory levy amounting to 2.25% of their total Australian revenue, a move designed to support the country's struggling journalism sector.

The proposed legislation aims to close a critical loophole in the original 2021 News Media Bargaining Code. Previously, platforms could bypass the levy by simply removing news content from their services—a tactic Meta employed in 2024 by shuttering its "news" tab.

The new "must-carry" framework is specifically designed to prevent these corporations from stripping news from their feeds to avoid financial obligations.

Albanese emphasised that journalism must have a "monetary value attached to it," arguing that multinational corporations should not profit from local reporting without providing fair compensation.

Reaction from the tech sector has been swift and critical. Meta described the levy as a "digital services tax" and argued that publishers post content voluntarily because they receive traffic value in return.

Google, while noting it already has arrangements with over 90 local businesses, rejected the necessity of the tax and questioned why other major players like OpenAI and Microsoft were excluded from the draft laws.

As the battle for advertising revenue continues, supporters of the bill maintain that the levy is essential to ensure the survival of newsrooms that have seen their primary revenue streams diverted to social media platforms.