If there were awards for honesty in politics, last week’s gong would go to Bill Shorten for being the first in Labor to spell out that the reason it may propose capping – not banning – gambling ads is to save the skin of traditional media, not gambling companies.
Shorten’s outing on Q&A to warn that “free-to-air media is in diabolical trouble” made it clear that the issue is the further erosion of media companies’ revenue base, amid other threats such as Meta’s decision not to renew journalism funding deals.
But the contribution elicited the obvious response from the Greens and others: that if the real problem is ensuring the survival of traditional media companies, surely they can be funded in other ways such as a tech tax (which Anthony Albanese has indicated the government is considering).
Let’s be under no illusion that this would be an expansion of the role of government in Australia. Governments of both political persuasions have subsidised the media already, and not just through funding public broadcasters the ABC and SBS.
Remember the Turnbull government’s decision to give $30m to Foxtel to boost sports broadcasting, later topped up with another $10m from the Morrison government?
What about the $5m bailout for Australian Associated Press in 2020? The newswire also got $12m in 2024–25 from the Albanese government to support its financial sustainability, and a portion of the $7m earmarked for Australian Palestinian, Muslim and other communities affected by the Israel-Gaza conflict.
As the Coalition watered down cross-media ownership laws to allow consolidation of media companies, Nick Xenophon negotiated $60m for independent and regional publishers, and funding for young rural journalists.
That package was patchy at best, as Xenophon revealed the government had excluded companies with a foreign parent entity from $8m of regional subsidies to prevent Guardian Australia from benefiting, which he attributed to “blind ideology”. News Corp regionals were still allowed to access the fund, as the control test was waived for regional media organisations.
So the government already has a long track record of subsidising traditional media. The only questions are how the revenue is raised and how it can be most fairly distributed.
Which is why it was reassuring to see, in the context of the gambling ad debate, that FreeTV Australia has asked not just for compensation that will benefit TV – the abolition of the $50m commercial broadcasting tax on transmitter licences – but ideas that could have broader application, such as a tax offset for local news production.
Tax offsets work by reducing a company’s tax bill in proportion to the amount it spends producing the thing the government wants more of.
Producer tax offsets already apply to making films in Australia and are a key part of the Future Made in Australia package to encourage the development of hydrogen and critical minerals.
It shouldn’t matter whether an Australian media company has a foreign parent – if it invests in journalism in Australia, it should benefit.
It shouldn’t matter if the investment is in the regions or capital cities, because shocks to revenue – such as the withdrawal of Meta’s money – are having an impact everywhere.
And it also shouldn’t be limited to plugging a specific revenue gap, such as restrictions on gambling ads. Why should the Guardian miss out because it has decided not to take gambling ads when the viability of traditional media generally is the social good the government is trying to support?
So, how to raise the revenue? Anya Schiffrin, the director of technology, media and communications at Columbia University, sees benefits to a tech tax instead of the process of designating companies under the news media bargaining code.
These include the ability to be “fair” about distribution, “set a predictable amount” to be raised, and including smaller new outlets that might otherwise miss out on deals with tech companies.
Thirty countries already have some form of digital services tax so there is “no reason not to”, Schiffrin says, despite tech companies’ protestations that they are not needed because the OECD is working towards establishing a global minimum on corporate tax.
Asked about a tech tax, the treasurer, Jim Chalmers, told Guardian Australia’s political editor, Karen Middleton, on the Australian Politics podcast that the OECD work has been the government’s “first preference” for “some years” but there were also “problems” and “delays” with it.
“That’s still our priority and our preference, but we are aware of and monitoring and engaging with other countries who are doing it in a different way, because it may, in the end, be relevant to us.”
The door to a tech tax is clearly ajar. It’s not clear whether this late into its first term the Albanese government can join up all the complex pieces of work required to make it happen.
But the patch-up jobs and sweetheart deals for some traditional media have reached the end of their useful lifespan. If we have decided journalism is worth paying for, governments should do it across the board.
