Meta and other tech companies refusing to sign content deals with Australian news outlets face millions in new fines, with Labor’s proposed media bargaining incentive set to impose penalties based on the local revenue of major platforms.
Large social media and search platforms with Australian-derived revenue of at least $250m will be subject to the new rules, irrespective of whether they carry news content, according to new detail released by the assistant treasurer, Daniel Mulino.
Labor has moved slowly in designing its news bargaining incentive plan, amid concerns the US president, Donald Trump, could retaliate over treatment of American-based platforms.
First announced in December 2024, its start date is yet to be decided and will be subject to a month-long public consultation by the government.
The new rules are being designed to force payments from platforms opting out of the Morrison-era news media bargaining code, which secured about 30 content deals worth an estimated $200m to $250m each year for publishers, including Guardian Australia and other news brands.
Declining advertising revenues have hurt major media operators including News Corp, Nine and Seven West Media, with staff redundancies and cost-cutting, even as digital players including the parent companies of Google and Facebook made hundreds of millions in profits.
Meta, which owns platforms including Facebook and Instagram, has refused to sign new deals under the existing code, while Google has voluntarily renewed some of its agreements with publishers, albeit at reduced rates.
Tech companies can avoid the existing arrangements by withdrawing news content entirely from their platforms, a move adopted by Meta in Canada in 2023.
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Labor’s new incentive plan is designed to help news publishers secure funding even from platforms opting out of news, and to help small publishers that are heavily reliant on digital platforms to distribute their content.
The new discussion paper says tech platforms will either have to pay a percentage of their total revenue generated in Australia, or just revenue from digital advertising, if they refuse to sign content deals. The penalties will be applied at the group level, not to smaller subsidiary brands owned by bigger companies.
Treasury has told the government it supports a $250m annual revenue threshold for the new system, and proposed the government use total group revenue generated in Australia as the main metric for payments.
Preliminary analysis suggests the value of existing deals with publishers is roughly equivalent to 1.5% of revenue generated in Australia by relevant platforms. The new penalties could be worth 2.25% of revenue, in order to incentivise deal-making under the existing code. Some eligible expenditure could be used to reduce the amount of penalties under the new incentive’s proposed design.
Companies will have to self-assess their liabilities under the rules, but the legislation will rely on common definitions of social media and search.
Meta does not lodge corporate accounts in Australia but the Australian Facebook subsidiary said in April it had revenues of $1.46bn here in the 12 months to 31 December. The total was up from $1.34bn in the previous year, despite the sluggish advertising market.
Trump threatened to impose costly trade tariffs against countries he considered to be treating American companies unfairly. His one-time ally and billionaire adviser Elon Musk owns the platform X.
But Labor is moving ahead with the new penalties after Anthony Albanese’s successful meeting at the White House last month.
Rod Sims, the former chair of the competition watchdog, has endorsed Labor’s plans for the new penalty system, arguing Google and Facebook benefit from the original content produced by Australian media outlets and that failing to support journalism will allow poor-quality sources of information to thrive.
Sims has previously estimated the commercial deals signed under the code were worth as much as $1bn over four years.
The government will consult on the incentive plans until 19 December, before settling a final approach sometime in 2026.
