Australia is getting serious about making big tech companies pay for news. The country’s government on Tuesday announced a bill that would require companies such as Meta, Google and TikTok to pay for the journalism they aggregate or reshare. If they don’t, they will face taxes on their local income.
“More and more people are getting their news directly from Facebook, TikTok and Google,” Communications Minister Annika Wells said at a press conference today.
The bill, known as the News Bargaining Incentive (NBI), would impose a 2.25% tax on the three platforms’ Australian profits unless they enter into commercial agreements with local news publishers. Additionally, the more deals you have with media outlets, the less you pay. If a successful deal is reached, the effective tax rate could drop to 1.5%, potentially returning between A$200 million and A$250 million to Australian journalism.
“Journalists are the lifeblood of Australia’s media sector and play a vital role in keeping our communities informed of important news,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement.
This is the country’s second attempt to force big tech companies to fund journalism. The Australian government introduced the News Media Bargaining Code, which officially came into effect in 2021, forcing platforms such as Google and Meta to pay news publishers. But the original version had a flaw that allowed big tech companies to remove news from their platforms to avoid paying. Meta did this in 2024, with the move reportedly causing widespread job cuts across Australian newsrooms.
Meta’s decision to phase out news content in 2024 leaves a fairly obvious gap in Australia’s media regulations. NBI is the government’s attempt to fix that, and there is no workaround this time. Platforms are taxed whether or not they publish news. The Albanon Government first announced the NBI in December 2024 to replace the existing 2021 Code, and the bill was finally introduced today.
The addition of TikTok marks a notable expansion of the norm. And the bill explicitly excludes AI services. Daniel Mulino, assistant secretary of the Treasury, said at a press conference today that AI is “not within the scope of this measure” and that “AI is currently being considered through a variety of other policy forums, including, for example, the Attorney General’s initiative on copyright.”
tech crunch event
San Francisco, California
|
October 13-15, 2026
The Trump administration has consistently opposed a digital services tax on U.S. tech companies and has repeatedly threatened to impose tariffs on countries that promote digital services taxes. Most recently, President Trump warned Britain that the country could face steep tariffs unless London lowers the digital services tax on American tech giants that derive value from British users, including Google, Meta and Apple.
Asked by a reporter about the pushback from the White House, Prime Minister Albanese told a news conference: “We are a sovereign nation and my government will make decisions based on Australia’s national interests. We will get it right across the board.”
If passed in Australia, platforms would have until July to comply, the same date as the tax start date.
Australia is not alone in this fight. Canada, Brazil and the EU are all competing with Big Tech for news, with mixed results. Canada’s 2023 legislation forces Meta to permanently remove news from its platform. Brazil’s bill has been in legislative limbo since 2019. The EU has bookkeeping rules, but they are enforced in very different ways. South Africa may offer the clearest blueprint. South African regulators brokered direct deals with Google, Meta, TikTok and Microsoft, securing about $40 million for local news organizations over five years.
Meta, Google and TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
If you buy through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This does not affect editorial independence.
Source link
