MELBOURNE — Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday released a draft News Bargaining Incentive scheme that would impose a 2.25% levy on the Australian revenues of Google, Meta and TikTok unless they strike deals with publishers to pay for news content. The government expects the scheme to raise up to 250 million Australian dollars annually for Australian journalism.

Platforms can avoid the levy by signing new agreements with publishers, with greater offsets available for deals with smaller outlets. Under the model, platforms that reach agreements would receive levy offsets of up to 170%, with excess offsets carried forward to future years. If platforms decline to make deals, the government will collect the levy and distribute it to media outlets based on the number of journalists each employs.

"[Journalism] shouldn't just be able to be taken by a large multinational corporation and used to generate profits for that organisation with no compensation appropriate for the people who produce that creative content," Albanese said. He said the government does not plan to collect revenue from the levy but instead wants to incentivise deals.

The scheme will apply to platforms with annual Australian revenue over 250 million Australian dollars and a large number of Australian users: at least 5 million for social media services and 10 million for search services. It currently captures TikTok, Google and Meta. Artificial intelligence platforms such as OpenAI, which use news content in their models, are not included.

"AI is currently being examined through a range of other policy forums, including, for example, the work on copyright being led by the attorney general," Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino said. He said other companies that reach the thresholds would also be captured by the scheme.

The model replaces the Morrison government's News Media Bargaining Code, under which Google and Facebook agreed deals worth about 250 million Australian dollars over three years. Meta did not renew deals worth about 70 million Australian dollars to compensate for news content on its platforms.

"A government-mandated transfer of wealth from one industry to another, with no connection to the value exchanged, will not deliver a sustainable or innovative news sector," a Meta spokesperson said. The spokesperson said: "News organisations voluntarily post content on our platforms because they receive value from doing so." Meta also described the proposal as "nothing more than a digital services tax" that would apply regardless of whether news content appears on its services.

"It ignores the fact that Google already has commercial agreements with the news industry, misunderstands how the ad market changed and mandates payments from some companies while arbitrarily excluding platforms like Microsoft, Snapchat and OpenAI," a Google spokesperson said.

"The delay in progressing these reforms has only reinforced the extent to which large digital platforms have been able to avoid accountability. That imbalance in bargaining power has only become more entrenched over time," said Allan Fels, chair of the Public Interest Journalism Initiative. "These measures must ensure that global technology companies cannot continue to operate on their own terms while benefiting from Australian news content," Fels said.

Labor first proposed the News Bargaining Incentive in late 2024. The government plans to introduce the draft legislation to parliament in the winter 2026 sitting period, by July 2, 2026.