Country Press Australia (CPA) has called for the federal government’s News Bargaining Incentive (NBI) to remain tightly focused on securing fair commercial agreements between major digital platforms and eligible Australian news publishers.
CPA president Damien Morgan says regional, rural and independent publishers are among the most exposed to the market power of global digital platforms.
“They employ journalists, produce public interest journalism, serve local communities and carry the obligations of professional news publishing,” he says.
“It is essential that the NBI delivers practical support to those publishers, not only to the largest media companies.”
Mr Morgan says CPA supports sensible measures to ensure small and medium publishers are not excluded from commercial agreements.
“We recognise the concern that platforms could seek to satisfy their obligations through a limited number of agreements with major media companies,” he says.
“The scheme should be designed to encourage fair dealing with genuine regional, rural and independent publishers that produce covered news content and employ professional journalists.”
However, CPA is concerned by proposals to divert a portion of NBI levy funds into a discretionary grants program.
“The NBI is not intended to become a general media grants scheme,” Mr Morgan says.
“Its purpose is to incentivise commercial agreements between platforms and eligible news publishers.”
He asserted top-slicing NBI funds into a supplementary grants pool would risk changing the character of the scheme.
“It could make the NBI look less like a bargaining incentive and more like a revenue-raising mechanism followed by government redistribution,” Mr Morgan says.
“That would be a serious policy risk and could strengthen arguments from platforms that the scheme is simply a tax rather than an incentive to support commercial agreements for news.”
Mr Morgan says it would also risk diverting funds away from professional publishers employing journalists and producing public interest news.
“A grants program would inevitably introduce delay, discretion, administration and uncertainty,” he says.
CPA’s position is clear.
“Any NBI distribution mechanism should remain directly tied to eligible news businesses, covered news content, professional editorial standards and the employment of journalists,” Mr Morgan says.
“Funds collected under the NBI should be returned to the news sector through a transparent, objective and journalist-based distribution model, not diverted into a discretionary grants pool.”
Mr Morgan says the survival of regional and independent journalism is too important for the NBI to be diluted or redirected.
“The scheme must remain focused on its original purpose, requiring the global platforms that benefit from Australia’s news ecosystem to support the professional publishers and journalists who sustain it,” he says.
