GeekStuff — IT Support & Managed Services

Australia passed a new law in late August that forces the big tech platforms to pay for the Australian news they carry. It's a policy story that made headlines nationwide — but underneath the politics, there's not much your business needs to do. Here's the plain-English version.

What the law does

The News Bargaining Incentive (NBI) replaces the old News Media Bargaining Code, which had a loophole Meta famously walked through. Under the new scheme:

Google, Meta, TikTok and Microsoft's LinkedIn face a 2.5% levy on their Australian digital advertising revenue.
It applies to platforms with a "significant" search or social service in Australia and more than A$250 million in local ad revenue.
A platform can avoid the levy by striking commercial deals with at least six Australian news publishers worth 1.5% or more of its revenue.

The clever part is the weighting: a dollar paid to a small or regional publisher offsets 170% of the levy, versus 150% for the big national mastheads. It's deliberately structured to steer money toward local journalism — not just News Corp and Nine.

So what changes for you?

Honestly, very little directly. You're not a platform, so there's no levy, no compliance, no paperwork on your end.

The indirect effects are worth keeping half an eye on:

News might get harder to find on Facebook. Meta has pulled news from its platform before rather than pay. If it does again, publishers — many of which lean on Facebook for traffic — lose that reach, and your feed loses some local coverage.
Google is the safer bet. Search genuinely benefits from news, so Google is the most likely to keep negotiating rather than walk away.
It's part of a bigger trend. This is the same regulatory energy driving the AI privacy rules and cyber accountability we've written about recently — government is steadily tightening its grip on big tech. For a small business, the practical lesson is simple: the platforms you advertise on are under more scrutiny than ever, and change happens fast.

The bottom line

No action required for your business. But if you market through Facebook or Google, it's a reminder that the ground under those platforms can shift quickly — and that a diversified marketing mix (your website, email list, Google Business Profile) is more valuable than it ever was.

If you'd like to talk about making your marketing less dependent on any single platform, get in touch and we'll take a look.