Australia: Treasury opened consultation on News Media Bargaining (Administration) Bill 2026

On 27 April 2026, the Australian Treasury opened a consultation on the exposure draft News Media Bargaining (Administration) Bill 2026 until 18 May 2026. The draft Bill would impose a news media bargaining charge on a parent entity whose service group provides a significant social media or search service in a financial year and has consolidated revenue attributable to Australia exceeding AUD 250 million. The charge would be calculated at 2.25% of the consolidated revenue attributable to Australia from the third-most-recent financial year. A parent entity would be entitled to offset the charge against eligible expenditure incurred by its service group on payments to Australian news businesses for the production of covered news content or for making covered news content available on a significant social media or search service. Payments to small or medium business entities would attract an offset multiplier of 170% and payments to other news business corporate groups 150%. Unused offsets could be carried forward to future financial years.