News Bargaining Incentive (nbi)

Written by Claude Haiku 4.5 from the extracted text on 28 Feb 2026. It can miss or misread redacted and scanned pages. Check the source before relying on it.

Treasury briefing material on the News Bargaining Incentive, a proposed policy measure designed to encourage digital platforms to enter commercial agreements with Australian news media businesses. The initiative responds to Meta's March 2024 decision to cease renewing news content payment deals, threatening journalism sustainability. The mechanism combines a charge on large digital platforms that decline commercial agreements with a non-refundable offset for platforms maintaining agreements at appropriate levels. Google has committed to renegotiating payments; offsets are intended to fully neutralize Google's liability if deals are maintained. The Government explicitly states it does not intend to raise revenue, only incentivize commercial dealing supporting public interest journalism at recent deal levels. The charge applies from 1 January 2025 tax year onward, with consultation papers, exposure drafts, and parliamentary legislation scheduled throughout 2025.