Money money money

You can’t have escaped news of the Albanese Government’s fifth budget, brought down last week by Treasurer Jim Chalmers. The Treasurer clearly has an eye on legacy-making, given the structural tax reforms that begin the shift of wealth-making to younger generations. Given the enormity of the governments’ win at the last election, the time until the next one and a calculation that any required legislation will pass the Senate, there could not have been a better time to make some tough decisions. Of course the haggling begun and we will see in the coming months whether the government gets it way. 

But for media, there was good news.

The ABC gets an extra $58 million so that in 2026-2027 it will be living on an annual budget of $1.3 billion. By 2030, its budget will have increased to $1.4 billion, which sounds like a lot but, in reality, is probably on the low side, given an increase in the number of employees and an increase in pay rates, following ABC staff’s historic 24-hour strike.

On the upside, the national broadcaster’s work on the government’s Indo-Pacific Broadcasting strategy gets a very healthy $14.1 million lift over two years via DFAT. That strategy “provides a framework to strengthen and expand Australian broadcasting and media sector engagement across the Indo-Pacific". The extra funding will help the ABC continue to build capacity in a region that previous governments cast out of their financial considerations. 

The government is also continuing to support Australian Associated Press, which in 2020 was near to closure after a storied 85-year long history of providing public interest journalism. It was saved by a consortium of investors and philanthropists and has since had its coffers bolstered by government. That government support will continue in 2026-27 with a $15 million boost, which is great news for AAP’s journalists and the Australian news media ecosystem. 

There was good news too for the commercial news sector. The commercial broadcasting tax is being suspended for a further two years to give commercial television and radio a bit of breathing space. If they spend it on journalism and Australian content rather than new carpet on their executive levels, the projected $111.3 million loss to government over the full five years from 2025 to 2030 will be worth it.

There’s also $6.4 million in 2026-27 to modernise media regulation and support structural changes to the media market. That will support the rollout of prominence and anti-siphoning reforms contained in 2024 legislation which mandated that new smart TV devices must feature free-to-air broadcaster apps on the primary user interface. The anti-siphoning reforms prevent pay streaming platforms such as Prime Video and Netflix from acquiring exclusive rights to big sports events including the Olympics, AFL/NRL finals and cricket ahead of bids by free-to-air broadcasters. 

And finally, the budget reaffirms the government’s intention to legislate a formula-based method of distributing funds collected from the platforms to media businesses. This is proposed in the form of the News Bargaining Incentive, which aims to tax platforms such as Google, Meta and Tik Tok to help pay for public interest journalism. Last week we talked about the opportunities and challenges of the proposal; this week we’re recovering from writing two submissions to government, one on the legislation, and one on the distribution mechanism. You can expect more from us soon. 

Now to my colleagues: Michael is weighing up the hype and scepticism around AI; Sacha is looking at why Australia is slipping down the global press freedom index; and Anh Nguyen, a visiting fellow from the University of Amsterdam, examines the legal and geopolitical dynamics shaping emerging quantum technology ecosystems. She writes about how law is actually keeping up with the technological developments in this space, rather than lagging behind. In fact you can hear Anh talk about her research on 2SER snackademics.

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