A newly released parliamentary committee report underscores the gravity with which politicians from all parties take the impact of digital platforms on the provision of news in Australia.

The report is the work of the Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society, a cross party group whose diverse membership takes in Sarah Hanson-Young, Zoe Daniel, Jacinta Nampijinpa-Price and Sarah Henderson. The committee’s terms of reference are broad, and the report released in late October focuses on traditional news media in the wake of the rise of social media. It recommends the government examine how a “digital platform levy” might generate revenue from tech companies, particularly given the imminent demise of the News Media Bargaining Code from which Meta is withdrawing at the end of the year. The report also endorsed providing short-term Commonwealth financial support for local news outlets.

Read the report

The committee’s recommendations were informed by 218 submissions it received from private individuals, welfare organisations, and many media groups – including the ABC. The Corporation’s submission made a case for its having unrestricted access to digital space in order to reach the public; it noted that the News Media Bargaining Code had enabled it to employ 60 new regional journalists whose salaries will from next year need to be covered by other means (ABC chair Kim Williams has committed to retaining these posts); it also drew attention to the incidence of “imposter content”, situations where the public is scammed by digital thieves appropriating ABC logos and branding.

Read the ABC submission (pdf)

The government announced on the same day as the report’s release a fund of $15 million to support salaries for regional and local public interest journalism. One stipulation of this pot is that it is for online news outlets. However local newspapers are not out of the picture– they could be thrown a publicly funded lifeline thanks to a new government-backed scheme involving the ABC. Professor Kristy Hess of Deakin University is leading a team developing a model whereby government would provide funds for local newspapers through the ABC. The project is based on a scheme operated by the BBC since 2017, in which the public broadcaster assists with the provision of public interest news without being itself the primary content creator. The Australian project expects to run a pilot in early 2025 – more to come as it unfolds!