Media jobs could be at risk from the federal government’s decision to make last-minute changes to its plan to make tech giants support journalism, Nine has warned, as its chief executive accuses Labor of overseeing a “failure for our democracy”.
Nine chief executive Matt Stanton said the company felt “deeply misled” by the federal government’s adjustments to its proposed laws to force big tech to pay for the use of Australian journalism, as he called on the prime minister to intervene.
If Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did not, Stanton said in a statement, “that’s not just a failure of media policy, that’s a failure for our democracy”.
The warning is the first time a major publisher has tied the scheme’s design directly to newsroom cuts. Stanton said the bill made further job losses a real possibility. There are already ongoing cuts across the company’s television and newspaper units. Nine is the owner of this masthead.
At the centre of Nine’s objection is a change that means the tech giants must now strike deals with at least six publishers, up from four.
Under the scheme, tech giants such as Meta and Google that use Australian media content would face a large bill based on 2.5 per cent of their local ad revenue unless they negotiated to pay Australian media companies for using the latter’s material. If they negotiated those deals, the tech companies’ tax liability would be reduced by more than the amount paid to a media company.
But, under a change revealed this week, the draft legislation caps how much any single deal can count towards a platform’s liability, at 16.67 per cent, down from 25 per cent in the April consultation draft.
Nine argues that the cap flattens the market, giving a platform the same maximum credit for a deal with a small outlet as for one with a company that funds a national television newsroom and numerous mastheads.
The government has also lifted the multiplier on deals with small publishers from 170 per cent of the amount of funding to 200 per cent, which Nine says compounds the problem.
“Throughout this process the government said its reform to the Bargaining Code would ensure the tech giants again negotiated commercial deals that reflected the true value that we deliver them,” Stanton said in a statement.
“Instead, it now engineers so-called commercial outcomes that deliberately distort the market.
“The equation doesn’t stack up.”
Smaller publishers have argued that they are essential to the future of the media, especially in regional areas or for diverse communities, and that they deserve greater support. At stake is a share of the up to $250 million a year that the government expects to be raised through commercial deals under the new laws.
The government is also trying to thread a needle between supporting Australia’s media sector, and a Trump White House that has retaliated against other countries’ efforts to tax or regulate American tech giants.
Stanton said that Nine’s journalism had led to royal commissions, corruption inquiries, criminal convictions and laws being changed.
“None of that happens without significant investment and risk, including at times to the safety of our journalists,” he said. “However, the government is putting that local journalism at risk, with the very real possibility of more job losses if the bill goes through in its current form. That’s the opposite of what we all set out to achieve.”
Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino has rejected the broader criticism, saying on Monday that the money reaching media companies would be unchanged. Commercial deals would deliver $200 million to $250 million a year, he said, while platforms that refused to negotiate would pay $350 million to $400 million to the government.
“In the arrangements that we inherited, there were few repercussions, if any, if big tech platforms walked away from news media organisations,” Mulino said on Monday.
The incentive is the government’s answer to the failure of the 2021 news media bargaining code, which was meant to force Meta and Google to pay Australian publishers for the journalism circulating on their platforms. While Google signed deals, Meta walked away in 2024, and the code lacked the mechanisms to stop it.
Publishers have long argued that tech giants pilfer the premium news content that is crucial to the success and user engagement of their networks. Tech companies, however, counter that publishers voluntarily share their articles to reap the commercial benefits of massive referral traffic, and they argue that news actually makes up only a tiny fraction of what their users want to see.
The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning.
David Swan is the technology editor for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously technology editor for The Australian newspaper.Connect via X or email.