News Journalism Payments Bill 2026

Ms CHANEY (Curtin) (11:26): by leave—I move amendments (1) to (13) to the News Journalism Payments Bill 2026, as circulated in my name, together: (1) Clause 3, page 3 (lines 23 to 26), omit the paragraph beginning "Also, 5% of the revenue", substitute: Also, 15% of the revenue from the charge is available to make grants of financial assistance, to entities with an annual income of less than $20 million, for the purpose of assisting in the production of core news content, with priority given to entities that are not otherwise eligible to receive payments under the scheme.

(2) Clause 40, page 39 (line 12), omit "10%", substitute "20%". (3) Clause 44, page 43 (line 7), omit "10%", substitute "20%". (4) Clause 93, page 87 (line 5), omit "10%", substitute "20%".

(5) Clause 93, page 87 (lines 8 to 12), omit the paragraph beginning "5% of collected charge revenue", substitute: ‚ 15% of collected charge revenue is available for making grants, under sections 94 and 95, to certain entities and corporations with an annual income of less than $20 million, with priority given to entities that are not otherwise eligible to receive payments under the scheme.

Any amount unspent in a payment year is available for spending in a later payment year. (6) Clause 94, page 88 (after line 11), after subclause (1), insert: (1A) In deciding which eligible entities (if any) to make a grant of financial assistance to under subsection (1), the Secretary must give priority to eligible entities that are not approved participants for the payment period during the which the grant under subsection (1) would be paid.

(7) Clause 94, page 88 (lines 15 to 17), omit the definition of eligible entity, substitute: annual income, for an individual, a partnership, a trust or a body corporate, means the amount for the individual, partnership, trust or body corporate that is worked out in accordance with regulations made for the purposes of this definition. eligible entity means an individual, a partnership, a trust or a body corporate (other than corporation to which paragraph 51(xx) of the Constitution applies) that has an annual income of less than $20 million.

(8) Clause 95, page 88 (after line 25), after subclause (1), insert: (1A) In deciding which eligible grant recipient corporations (if any) to make a grant of financial assistance to under subsection (1), the Secretary must give priority to eligible grant recipient corporations that are not eligible corporations. Note: For eligible corporation, see section 7. (9) Clause 95, page 89 (before line 1), before the definition of eligible grant recipient corporation, insert: annual income, for a corporation, means the amount for the corporation that is worked out in accordance with regulations made for the purposes of this definition.

(10) Clause 95, page 89 (line 4), omit paragraph (c) of the definition of eligible grant recipient corporation entity, substitute: (c) that has an annual income less than $20 million. (11) Clause 100, page 90 (line 25), omit "half", substitute "three-quarters". (12) Clause 100, page 90 (line 27), omit "half", substitute "three-quarters".

(13) Clause 100, page 91 (line 3), omit "half", substitute "one-quarter". I support the intent of these bills. Platforms that profit from Australian journalism should pay for it, and the previous code failed the moment the platforms realised they could simply walk away from the news.

But, as drafted, this scheme will work for Australia's largest and publishers and leave small, independent and community media behind. My amendment addresses this. The first group of amendments to this bill ensure that small publishers get a share of the deals.

Under the scheme as drafted, a platform must strike a minimum of eight deals to discharge its obligations. Nothing in this bill requires any of those deals to be with a small publisher. Australia's largest media companies own dozens of outlets between them.

One Western Australian player alone publishes 22 papers, so eight deals can be reached without a single independent publisher being party to any of them. We should not assume the market will correct for this. When one independent newspaper in my electorate had lawyers write to Meta and Google, the correspondence was ignored.

Amendments (1) to (13) to the payments bill provide that a service group cannot claim the offset unless at least 12.5 per cent of its qualifying expenditure for the year goes to news businesses with an annual income under $20 million. This is not a heavy impost on companies of this scale. Small and medium publishers account for around 16 per cent of market share, so 12.5 per cent is a reasonable requirement.

It will, however, guarantee that the smallest publishers are part of the deal making rather than spectators to it. I commend this amendment to the House.