Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to be standing here in support of the News Journalism Payments Bill 2026, because a strong democracy depends on a strong, independent and sustainable news media. It depends on Australians having access to trusted information, quality public interest journalism and local reporting that keeps communities informed, governments accountable and democratic debate healthy.

Yet the media landscape has changed dramatically over the last decade. Digital platforms have fundamentally transformed the way that we access information and consume news. While these changes have delivered enormous benefits, they have also reshaped the economics of journalism. Advertising revenue that once supported our local newspapers, city based newspapers, metropolitan newspapers and country newspapers has increasingly shifted towards large digital platforms. As a result, many Australian news organisations have come under growing financial pressure, particularly those serving local and regional communities. This really does matter because, when journalism declines, communities lose more than just news; they lose scrutiny of local decision-making, they lose coverage of local events, and they lose stories that reflect who they are, what they value and what makes their communities unique. Ultimately, our democracy is weaker for it.

The news bargaining bill before the House represents an important step towards addressing this challenge. I think back to the way we sourced our media. You'd look at the TV news every night at six o'clock on ABC, 7, Nine and 10, and then you would look at your local papers. In Adelaide we had the Advertiser. We also had the Afternoon News,which went a long time ago. But we also had something really important, which was our metropolitan newspapers, which reported on issues by dividing the state up into regions, including the metropolitan area—north, west, east and south—and would report on local issues.

There'd be, as we heard the member for Riverina say earlier, a record forever and a day. You could go back 20 or 30 years and find that particular record, which is really important also for our history. Today you can put something online and take it off tomorrow, and no-one would ever even know that it was there. After a little bit of digging around, I picked up an article from 29 September 2004. That's nearly 22 years ago. It says: 'Steve committed to the electorate'—and this is a local paper reporting on this—'Steve Georganas isn't going anywhere any time soon. "Win or lose, I'll still be here after the election," the Labor candidate claimed. A local resident for 45 years, Mr Georganas has run for the seat twice before. He hopes residents will recognise his passion for the electorate.' It goes on and on. That was the 2004 election. There's a record of it.

It was a local paper that reported the following week on my opponent, which happened to be Simon Birmingham. He wasn't successful at that election, but I was. It just goes to show. Little, local issues—a local newspaper telling its community who the candidates were, what they stood for and what their commitments were. There's a record from 22 years ago, and it's there. You just go online onto News Corp and find it. It's important for our history to keep records of all of these documented news stories. Mine's only a minor one, but there are obviously big issues that should be kept.

The news media bargaining bills before the House represent an important step in addressing the challenge of how our media has changed. These bills are about supporting the long-term sustainability and diversity of Aussie journalism. They recognise a simple but important principle: when digital platforms derive significant value from news content, there should be a fair framework that helps support the journalism that creates that value. That's why this legislation encourages digital platforms and Australian news organisations to reach meaningful commercial agreements rather than relying solely on government intervention.

The framework in this bill creates strong incentives for negotiation and partnership. Platforms can reduce their liability by entering into eligible commercial agreements with Australian news businesses, rewarding direct investment in Australian journalism. This is a practical, market based approach that supports both innovation and accountability. The amendment before the House is modest in scale but significant in effect. By increasing the news bargaining incentive charge rate from 2.5 per cent to 2.75 per cent if a digital platform's advertising revenue is attributable to Australia, we are recognising how significantly digital and media markets have evolved since the original benchmark was established in 2021.

This bill is also about ensuring our regional areas have that viable media, and it's ensuring that future generations inherit a media landscape that is diverse, independent and sustainable. A strong democracy requires an informed public, strong communities require local voices and a strong Australia requires strong journalism. When we support local journalism, we're supporting local communities. We're maintaining our history. When we protect independent reporting, we strengthen the accountability. When we invest in trusted news, we invest in the health of our democracy itself and in the health of diversity, ensuring that we receive media content that is truthful and independent, that we have a thriving democracy, and that people are accountable—especially politicians.

See this speech in context