Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In a 1999 BBC interview, David Bowie told a sceptical Jeremy Paxman:

I don't think we've even seen the tip of the iceberg. I think the potential of what the Internet is going to do to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable.

When Paxman retorts, 'It's just a tool though isn't it?' Bowie expresses his belief that it is going to crush our ideas of what mediums are all about. The structure of the public sphere has been so much changed by the internet that it can only be accurately compared to the invention of the printing press and the print revolution that followed. The print revolution completely changed the structure of public life, increasing the volume of content and making it much more accessible. This same phenomenon is happening again with the internet but at a much faster pace, and we are struggling to keep up with all of the consequences.

One of these consequences is the effect on news media. As the internet has exploded in the last 20 years, it has completely changed how and where people get their news. Most people now read their news online rather than in print, with print advertising having fallen by 75 per cent since 2005. At the same time, online advertising has increased eight-fold, and so news media has adapted and moved online through websites and apps. However, the way people will come to this news is through big tech platforms like Facebook and Google. And because of the nature of the internet and how it has evolved, these digital platforms dominate the online advertising market. They do this by using a model where users are individually targeted based on large amounts of data that correspond to their likes, searches, purchasing, browsing and so on. With this in mind, most advertising dollars are getting snapped up by big tech, rather than the news companies, with Facebook and Google collecting a whopping 81 per cent of online advertising. This means that news media outlets have lost a major revenue stream and it makes it hard for them to stay afloat in the digital age.

This isn't just bad for these news businesses; it's bad for consumers. Having a healthy and robust landscape of public interest journalism is vital for a democracy to work. We need journalism that will hold government accountable and keep the public informed in an unbiased manner. Therefore, it's important that we pass laws that will protect journalism from unfair cartel-like business practices, which is what we're seeing with Facebook and Google, having built a dominant position in the advertising market for themselves.

It is unfair because digital platforms are profiting off the content that Australian news outlets create. When someone clicks a news link in Google, most of that ad revenue ends up with Google and not the news site. Yes, platforms help drive traffic to these news sites, but news is what draws people to, and keeps a lot of people on, the platforms. This is a symbiotic relationship in which both participants benefit but it is also one where the platforms hold all the power and are getting all the profit. This is what this bill aims to rectify.

This bill will make social media giants pay news companies for their content. These businesses put all the work into producing articles and news content and they should be appropriately compensated for it. Digital platforms have become the trading partners of news media, whether they like it or not, due to the way advertising works on the internet, and trading partners will usually strike deals as to the terms of their trade.

What's happening now is that there is a power imbalance in the negotiation because the platforms hold all the advertising dollars. What this bill does is establish a mandatory bargaining code which corrects the bargaining power imbalance. Now when a news company is in negotiation with big tech and is offered a deal that they are unhappy with they can trigger the code to come into effect. If the two sides cannot come to an agreement by themselves then the code will require both sides to come to the table and negotiate in good faith. The code also establishes minimum standards that must be met for their negotiations and, importantly, a final arbitration process. If the two sides can't come to an agreement after three months then both sides will each submit their own deal to a panel of independent arbiters who will choose the one they believe to be fairer. This way the government doesn't get involved with, or set the terms of, the deal but they incentivise businesses to strike a deal themselves or force them to come to the table. The code of conduct simply ensures that the deal actually happens and in a fair and timely manner. The coalition government is doing its job of regulating business when it needs to and breaking up monopoly power that the tech giants have gained because of their control of advertising revenue.

While the platforms will have to pay the news companies for their content, the bill has made concessions to big tech by acknowledging the value they bring to the relationship. This value comes from giving news content greater reach and circulation which arbiters must take into consideration in their final decision. This is considered along with the arguably greater value of the creation of original news content and the work that goes into its journalistic process. Digital platforms and news media have a symbiotic relationship, and this bill will ensure that it's a mutually beneficial, rather than parasitic, one. As well as the unfair market power that Google and Facebook have gained, they've also become the gatekeepers of how we access most of our news, and this has given them a power over the public arena that is concerning. Over a third of Australians get their news from Facebook, and many others find the latest headlines through Google either by searching or by having articles recommended to them. Their algorithms govern what news gets promoted and what gets suppressed.

During the drafting of this bill, we saw them threaten Australians by threatening to take news off their sites altogether. We won't be bullied. There is far too much power resting in the hands of a few giant companies, and their effect on news and its circulation is just one aspect of it. We saw them abuse this power just recently, as every major platform banned the then sitting President of the United States before, during and after the recent US presidential elections—a move that amounted to nothing more than censorship. In a dictatorship, it's the dictator who does the censoring, and the actions of the media giants reflect this.

Digital platforms should not have control over who can and cannot speak, especially when it comes to democratically elected public officials. Though they are private companies, their platforms have become the new public square where politics and business are done and where news is published. Global corporations just continue to get larger and more powerful, and they use that power to shape society. This is a very dangerous trend, because, in the Western world, many of the checks and balances the governments are subject to do not apply to corporations. Just as, when any new resource or technology becomes big, it's the government's job to step in and regulate the space, it's high time we started holding these companies to account. These companies must come under the same scrutiny and regulation that traditional media has come under over the years, as our world evolves in a new direction. This bill will be an important regulating factor in keeping these tech giants in check, by forcing them to pay their fair share for content and also by requiring them to inform the news companies of any algorithm changes that are likely to have a significant effect on their website traffic.

Given how quickly the internet has evolved, we're still figuring out when to regulate it, how to properly regulate it and how it fits into greater society. Where the internet was once the Wild West, big tech companies have become powerful oil barons controlling the land. It's time for the government to step in and break up the monopolies. When it comes to news media and breaking up the market power these digital platforms have over news distribution, having a mandatory bargaining code will set an important precedent for other nations as they start regulating these digital platforms.

Another area that we should seriously consider is whether people who set up accounts on these social media sites should actually use their real names, rather than anonymous avatars. They often proceed to bully other commentators if they don't agree with their point of view. This type of behaviour wouldn't happen in real life. If some of the comments that were made on social media were said face to face in a pub, it's highly likely you wouldn't walk out in a vertical position, yet on social media people seem to get away with the most heinous insults, with very little respect to those posting other comments. We get plenty of this in the political space, but, for me, the real concern is the psychological effect it must have on our children going forward when they're bullied relentlessly on social media. I know we've had some tragic cases here in Australia. I would like to see further controls on the social media giants in this space, because there's no decorum on social media. Quite frankly, it's a cesspit. It's a gutter and it needs to stop. If Facebook and these other media giants aren't going to demand that people use their true identities or, if it's a corporation or an organisation, be fully transparent—democracy is based on transparency and accountability, yet it's very difficult to hold people accountable for often abusive or defamatory comments when they hide behind avatars. Sure, you can go and take out a legal case, but a lot of people don't have the money or the time or the inclination to try and track down who the anonymous people are behind the bullying on these social media giants.

Another area where we need to crack down on these social media giants is their ability to transfer profits offshore or even keep their profits offshore. If you look at the Google special purpose accounts issued in 2019, they paid $3½ billion in service fees to related parties. Where that money went, I have no idea, but I do know where the problem lies, and it's in accounting standard AASB 124, which relates to related party transactions. Effectively there's a distinction in Australia between the types of accounting reports that you have to release. If you're an Australian entity and you're a big organisation, you have to do general purpose reporting and you have to disclose a lot more information. But, if you're a big tech or a big company and you can wrangle your way out of having a public interest test here, you only have to do special purpose reporting, and that special purpose reporting requires a lot less disclosure, hence it becomes a lot easier not just for digital multinationals but for all multinationals to hide their related party transactions. And, yes, the tax office can go after these guys, but it is very difficult for the tax office to go after every multinational that's been set up in Australia. I think, if every multinational was required to give much greater disclosure of related party transactions, you'd find that there'd be vigilant antiprotectionists and patriots who'd happily pay 70 bucks to ASIC to get a hold of their accounts to troll through the related party disclosures.

Anyway, business always performs better when there is competition, and this government is doing its job to regulate the market when there is a problem. This will be an important step in redistributing the overall power these platforms have and it will preserve the integrity of our public interest journalism and, in turn, our democracy. This bill won't fix all the problems with big tech, but it is an important first step in standing up to them. I commend the bill to the Senate.