Australia appears likely to opt out of “designating” Facebook owner Meta under its news media bargaining code, and having already worked around the problem of having the name of treasurer Jim Chalmers on the edict.
Chalmers has already recused from the oversight, to avoid potential conflicts of interest, and it will be assistant treasurer Stephen Jones who makes the announcement later today, with communications minister Michelle Rowland.
It is understood the code may be abandoned. Earlier this (Thursday) morning the ABC was reporting that the Albanese government would ditch the “Morrison-era” media code, which it considers no longer fit for purpose.
It’s not clear whether the reasons are political or strategic.
The ABC said it had been told by a spokesperson that the government’s focus was now on “a new deal to support ‘good Australian journalism’.
"We want a new deal to support good Australian journalism. The news media bargaining code we inherited doesn’t do the job," they said.
The legislation was introduced in 2021, requiring tech giants such as Meta and Google to pay for displaying news content, with a threat of forced ‘baseball’ (final offer) arbitration if they failed to make a deal with publishers, administered by treasury.
The potential “potential conflicts of interest” arose as Chalmers’ wife Laura, works for News Corp Australia, where she is editor of the group’s metro newspaper-inserted-magazines. As Laura Anderson, she wanted to be a journalist when she was 12 and applied for a cadetship at News’ (Adelaide) Advertiser three times before entering a career which took her to state and then federal political reporting, and then to politics itself, with roles as press secretary to first Penny Wong and then prime minister Julia Gillard.
She married Chalmers in March 2013 – a couple of days after an ALP leadership spill – and returned to News in Brisbane that December. As Weekend Magazine editor-in-chief (Sydney Weekend, VWeekend, QWeekend and SA Weekend), she now focuses on long-form journalism.
Meta had earlier announced it was “deprecating” the Facebook ‘News’ tab in Australia and the US in April, saying news made up only three per cent of what users saw on the social app.
Meanwhile, Google is understood to be continuing to negotiate with publishers.
Pictured: Jim and Laura Chalmers with children Leo, Annabel and Jack (photo from the Jim Chalmers MP website)