
As the News Media Bargaining Code agreements in Australia start to wind down, there is discussion about what will come next. Media academic Andrea Carson calls the codes, passed in 2021, “world-first” legislation because Australia was the first country to use competition law to get Google and Meta to pay news publishers for the news they distribute and profit from.
According to former chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Rod Sims, about A$250 million flowed to news publishers each year. It’s just a fraction of what would have been a fair price.