News Media Bargaining (Administration) Bill 2026

Ms SPENDER (Wentworth) (12:10): by leave—I move amendments (1) to (6), as circulated in my name, together: 1) Clause 6, page 5 (after line 1), after the definition of charge offset, insert: coalition agreement has the meaning given by section 18A. coalition member, for a coalition agreement, has the meaning given by section 18A. (2) Clause 6, page 6 (after line 3), after the definition of new eligible expenditure, insert: news bargaining coalition means two or more news businesses, at least one of which is conducted by a small or medium business entity, that act together (whether through a jointly owned entity, an unincorporated association, a common representative, or any other collective arrangement) for the purpose of negotiating or entering into agreements of the kind described in paragraph 18(1)(c) or 18(2)(d) with one or more social media services or search services.

(3) Clause 17, page 19 (line 16), after "subsection 18(1) or (2) (about commercial deals)", insert "or section 18A (about coalition deals)". (4) Page 22 (after line 4), after clause 18, insert: 18A Expenditure under coalition agreements with news bargaining coalitions Coalition agreements (1) An agreement is a coalition agreement if: (a) it is an agreement of a kind described in paragraph 18(1)(c) or 18(2)(d); and (b) the other entity or entities under the agreement (disregarding subparagraphs 18(1)(c)(ii) to (iv) and 18(2)(d)(ii) to (iv)) are, or act on behalf of, members of a news bargaining coalition; and (c) each news business on whose behalf the agreement is entered into is, just before the agreement is entered into, a member of a registered news business corporate group or a news business corporate group.

(1A) Each news business referred to in paragraph (1)(c) is a coalition member for the coalition agreement. Expenditure taken to be incurred in relation to each coalition member (2) If: (a) a member of the parent entity's service group provides consideration under a coalition agreement; and (b) the amount of that consideration would, apart from paragraph 18(1)(c) or 18(2)(d) (as applicable), otherwise satisfy the requirements of subsection 18(1) or (2) in relation to a coalition member; then, despite the entity providing the consideration not dealing directly and exclusively with a single news business corporate group, subsection 18(1) or (2) (as applicable) applies as if the agreement had been made separately with each coalition member, to the extent of that coalition member's attributed share of the consideration.

Working out the attributed share (3) A coalition member's attributed share of consideration provided under a coalition agreement is: (a) the amount specified for that coalition member in the coalition agreement; or (b) if no amount is specified for that coalition member as mentioned in paragraph (a)—the amount determined by the news bargaining coalition (however that determination is made by the coalition), and notified in writing to the Commissioner before, or within a reasonable period after, the consideration is provided.

Note: Paragraphs (a) and (b) leave the method of allocation entirely to the coalition agreement or to the coalition itself; this section does not prescribe, and the rules may not prescribe, a method or formula for determining a coalition member's attributed share. (4) The sum of the attributed shares determined for a coalition agreement under subsection (3) must not exceed the total consideration provided under the agreement.

Anti-double-counting (5) To avoid doubt, an amount counted as a coalition member's attributed share under this section is not also to be counted as eligible expenditure of the parent entity in relation to any other news business corporate group. (5) Clause 20, page 22 (line 26), after "in relation to each news business corporate group", insert "(counting, for a coalition member's attributed share under section 18A, that share as new eligible expenditure in relation to the coalition member's own news business corporate group and no other)".

(6) Clause 20, page 22 (after line 31), after subparagraph 20(1)(b)(ii), insert: (ia) for a news business corporate group whose only new eligible expenditure for the financial year is an attributed share under section 18A, and which consists only of small or medium business entities for the financial year—200%; and I rise on these amendments because, as the bill is drafted, there is no explicit provision which allows for a coalition or collectively negotiated agreement to count as eligible expenditure.

Section 18 requires payment to be made directly under an agreement with the members of a single news corporate group. This allows for individual papers which may be listed under one major group to enter into deals. It does not help those publishers which are independent.

If a digital platform strikes one deal with a coalition of, say, three or 18 small regional publishers acting together, there may be ambiguity in this legislation about whether or not such an agreement would count as expenditure. There should be no uncertainty. We should be encouraging tech giants to negotiate with smaller publishers whenever we can.

Even if it does get counted, there's no mechanism to attribute it back to the individual mastheads for the purpose of the eight-group threshold or the small business offset rate. These amendments fix this gap directly. They insert a new section 18A, which treats a coalition deal as if it were a separate agreement with each participating publisher's own corporate group to the extent of the publisher's attributed share of the payment.

How that share is worked out is left entirely to the coalition and the platform to negotiate between themselves, as the agreement will be individual. It simply requires that whatever shares are agreed add up to no more than what was actually paid. Each publisher's share then counts separately towards eight different group thresholds and towards the enhanced offset rate where the publisher is a small or medium business, with the safeguard to ensure that the same dollar can never be counted twice.

This is not a hypothetical problem. We have real lived experience of exactly this model working in this country. Country Press Australia negotiated on behalf of 240 regional and community publications.

The Minderoo Foundation brought together 18 small independent publishers under the Public Interest Publishers Alliance. These arrangements exist because the ACCC recognised back in 2021 that individual small publishers have no real bargaining power against Google and Meta but a coalition does. Country Press Australia itself has welcomed the increase in number of required commercial agreements under this scheme on the assumption that regional independent publishers will be part of that count, but, under the bill as it stands, the assumption may not hold.

I want to let the minister know I'm not calling a division on these amendments. I recognise that the amendments were circulated late, though to be honest, we're frustrated. I'm frustrated that we're again debating this bill without the Senate inquiry.

But I think that this is an area that would benefit from clarification because I think it is not clear in the legislation as written. It could be through an amendment or it could be through another mechanism to make sure that it's clear that an expenditure which is under a collectively bargained agreement negotiated through a coalition or bargaining representative can count as eligible expenditure.

I think this is a genuine challenge and a genuine question that's been raised with me with independent publishers. I raise the point that I raised in my earlier speech, which is that the minister and others—the Assistant Treasurer in particular—indicated that Google in the past had ended up with an agreement with a range of small publishers. That indicates that it's possible to strike bargains with small publishers.

The great challenge of that, however, is that, having spoken to some of those small publishers who are part of that agreement, it was incredibly hard to get to the table to do that. They wouldn't have been able to do that as individuals. They did it because they were actually funded philanthropically to build a collective.

And then, you know, there's enormous pressure. And sometimes in those cases, those deals fall apart. It was actually more the social pressure that enabled those deals to continue, because it would certainly have been easier for the major players not to be negotiating with these small players.

This is a difficult area. I think we all collectively want to support small, regional players. I do want to make sure that this legislation supports some sort of collective agreement for the smaller players to come together, because this is a concern that's been raised with me by the sector.

I think it's a genuine question that those group of publishers have.