Submission to the News Bargaining Incentive

Abstract

In this submission, we have responded to a selected set of questions outlined in the Treasury Consultation Paper. Our main recommendations are: 1. Considerations should be given to extending the Incentive to apply to major generative AI platforms and not simply restricted to social media and search services. 2. Gross annual Australian revenue collected (including GST) should be the basis on which the significance of a digital platform is determined. 3. The charge base of total gross revenue generated in Australia (including GST), aggregated across a company as a whole should provide the basis for determining inclusion in the Incentive. 4. Consideration should be given to enabling smaller publishers to undertake collective bargaining arrangements for the purposes of engagement with the Incentive process, in order to address concerns about the exclusion of smaller news publishers from the News Media Bargaining Code, 5. There should be strengthened reporting requirements around both the funding received by news publishers through the Incentive, and the uses of such funding, to strengthen accountability, transparency and public confidence in the Incentive.