Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I will make a couple of points. The intention of the code, from the outset, has been to encourage commercial negotiation reflecting the underlying policy position, as advised to the government by the ACCC, that there is an imbalance of bargaining power between the news media businesses, on the one hand, and the digital platforms, on the other. The consequence of that has been that commercial deals which would ordinarily occur in a market which did not have these serious market power issues have not been occurring.

Our first preference is that there be commercial deals. That of course is why it's known as a 'negotiate-arbitrate model', because if you can negotiate a commercial outcome then you never need to go to arbitration. But, of course, what the government clearly recognises is that you need to be in a position to impose the arbitration process if a commercial deal is not done.

I know the shadow minister is asking about various possibilities, but I want to be very clear: the code provides a process under which the Treasurer can designate services of digital platforms, and that will be considered by the Treasurer when he receives advice from the ACCC. So no conclusion should be drawn as to how the Treasurer's going to deal with that issue; he will deal with that issue on the merits, based upon advice from the ACCC and having regard to factors such as the number of news media businesses which have advised the government that they've entered into commercial deals. So that will be a very live consideration.

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