Australia’s government wants to hit Meta, Google, and TikTok with a 2.25% charge on their Australian revenue if they refuse to pay local news publishers for content. Draft legislation for what Canberra calls the News Bargaining Incentive was released for public consultation in late April 2026, presenting the platforms with a stark choice: negotiate commercial deals with Australian newsrooms or face a levy that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
For an industry that has watched advertising revenue drain toward Silicon Valley for more than a decade, the proposal represents the most forceful attempt yet by any government to make platforms pay up. But whether it works depends on a question no one can answer yet: Will the tech giants write the checks, or walk away from Australian news altogether?
Why Australia is trying again
The NBI exists because Australia’s first attempt at this fight lost its punch. The News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code, passed in 2021 after a bruising standoff with Meta, was supposed to force platforms to the negotiating table. It made Australia the first country to create a legal mechanism compelling digital platforms to pay for news.
But the code’s key enforcement trigger, formal designation of a platform by the government, was never pulled. According to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, not a single platform has ever been formally designated under the code. Instead, the threat alone pushed Google and Meta into voluntary deals worth an estimated A$200 million annually to Australian publishers, a figure reported at the time by outlets including The Guardian and referenced in ACCC reporting on the code’s early impact.
Those deals were always fragile. Meta began allowing agreements to lapse starting in 2024, as multiple news organizations reported at the time. The total value of payments to publishers has since declined. The NBI is the government’s attempt to replace a threat that lost its credibility with a mechanism that carries automatic financial consequences.
How the levy would work
Under the draft bill, large digital platforms operating social media services in Australia would face a charge calculated as a percentage of their Australian-sourced revenue. The 2.25% rate has been reported by The Guardian and other outlets, which named Google, Meta, and TikTok as the primary targets. The government’s consultation materials describe the mechanism broadly but stop short of specifying the exact percentage in the same detail, meaning the figure is not yet locked into enacted law.
To put the potential cost in perspective: Google’s Australian revenue alone has been estimated in the billions of dollars annually. Even a 2.25% slice of that represents a substantial sum, and platforms are likely to treat it as a tax regardless of how the government frames it.
Platforms can reduce or eliminate their liability by striking commercial agreements with publishers listed on the ACMA’s register of eligible news businesses. The more deals a platform signs, the less it owes. According to the joint media release from Treasury ministers, the government does not intend to raise net revenue from the scheme. The ideal outcome, as described in a November 2024 policy framework announcement, is that every platform pays enough to publishers that its levy liability drops to zero.
The Meta question
The biggest variable is Meta. None of the three companies named in reporting have commented publicly on the draft legislation as of May 2026, but Meta’s history suggests compliance is far from guaranteed.
During the 2021 bargaining code fight, Meta pulled all news content from Facebook in Australia for several days, a dramatic escalation that drew global attention and forced last-minute amendments to the code. The company later struck deals with some Australian publishers but allowed many of those agreements to expire.
Canada offers a cautionary parallel. When Ottawa passed the Online News Act (C-18) in 2023, Meta responded by blocking news on Facebook and Instagram for all Canadian users, a ban that remains in place. If Australia’s levy is steep enough, Meta could decide that walking away from news entirely is cheaper than paying. The NBI’s designers are betting that a direct charge on revenue, rather than a negotiation mandate, changes that calculus.
Google’s posture is different. The company signed deals with Australian publishers under the original code and has generally been more willing to negotiate. Whether a new levy accelerates or complicates those arrangements is an open question. TikTok, the third platform named, has a smaller but growing news footprint in Australia, and its inclusion signals the government wants the framework to cover emerging platforms, not just the incumbents.
Who gets paid, and how much
For Australian newsrooms, the critical question is not just whether platforms pay, but who receives the money. The ACMA register determines which outlets qualify, but it does not dictate how deals are distributed. If platforms can satisfy their levy obligations by signing agreements with a handful of large media companies, regional outlets, independent newsrooms, and niche publications could be shut out entirely.
Peter Lewis, executive director of the Australia Institute’s Centre for Responsible Technology, told reporters in late April 2026 that the NBI “only works if the money reaches the newsrooms that communities actually depend on, not just the big metro mastheads.” That concern is shared by the Public Interest Journalism Initiative, which has argued that any framework must include safeguards for smaller and regional outlets.
The consultation papers reference proportionality and fairness as guiding principles but do not mandate any minimum spread of deals across the register. For smaller publishers already contending with shrinking ad revenue, the gap between being included in a platform deal and being overlooked could determine whether they survive.
The unresolved overlap between the NBI and the bargaining code
Public consultation on the draft bill is open through the Treasury’s consultation portal. Submissions from publishers, platforms, civil society groups, and the public will shape whether the government adjusts the levy rate, tightens rules around deal distribution, or clarifies how the NBI interacts with the existing bargaining code.
That relationship remains unresolved, and the ambiguity matters in practice. If both instruments stay active, a platform could theoretically face designation under the code and a levy under the NBI at the same time, creating overlapping compliance obligations. Alternatively, the government could use the NBI as the sole enforcement mechanism while leaving the code dormant, which would effectively render the 2021 legislation symbolic. The government has described the NBI as operating alongside the code, using the same register of eligible businesses, but some reporting has framed it as a replacement. Until the final bill clarifies which instrument takes precedence and whether the code’s designation power will ever be exercised, platforms and publishers alike face genuine uncertainty about their legal obligations and entitlements.
A framework other governments are already studying
Australia is not acting alone. France, Canada, and Indonesia have all pursued or explored frameworks for making platforms compensate news publishers. But Australia’s approach, tying a specific revenue-based charge directly to the absence of voluntary deals, is among the most aggressive anywhere in the world.
If the NBI passes and survives the legal and political challenges that will inevitably follow, it could become a blueprint for governments across Europe, Asia, and the Americas that are locked in the same struggle. If it fails, or if the platforms simply absorb the cost and refuse to negotiate, it will raise a harder question: whether any national government has enough leverage to force a global tech company to pay for something it would rather give up.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
