Rafael Epstein:
The government’s also targeting the big social media companies, so Google, Meta, TikTok, they are going to have to hand over some money to us here at the ABC, to the company that owns a newspaper like The Age, Sky News. So that is big tech making money out of Australian journalists, according to the government, so they have to hand over some of that cash. If they don’t, they’ll cop an extra tax and the government’s going to hand that money to the Australian media.
Daniel Mulino is the Assistant Treasurer. He is the member for Fraser in Melbourne, part of the Albanese Labor government. Good morning.
Daniel Mulino:
Good morning, thanks for having me on.
Epstein:
Meta, which own Facebook and Instagram, they say this is quite simply a government‑mandated transfer of wealth from one industry to another. They’re kind of right, aren’t they?
Mulino:
No, I don’t think that’s right at all. And look, can I just take a step back and say that journalism is critical for Australia to be able to tell its stories, to know what’s going on in the world in an unbiased way. But public interest journalism in particular is critical to our democracy.
What we know is that media organisations are increasingly having to deal with very large digital platforms that have incredible bargaining power, and that there’s no option but for them to deal with these digital platforms.
The previous government brought in the News Media Bargaining Code which we supported and there were a number of commercial agreements between digital platforms and media organisations as part of that Code.
Epstein:
And the ABC got some of that money.
Mulino:
It did. And a range of media organisations, large and small. Now what we saw after that was that some of the digital platforms stepped away from that, and what we’re saying is we are going to put in place, draft legislation out yesterday, for a mechanism that says to the big digital platforms, ‘We want to put in place an incentive to prod you, to incentivise you to re‑enter those commercial agreements, fair commercial agreements’.
Now, if they decide not to enter into that process, there is an incentive arrangement where they would pay 2.25 per cent of their Australian‑sourced revenue, and those payments would then be passed back to media organisations.
Now, the Minister for Communications put out a discussion paper yesterday suggesting how that might work. That would be based on journalists, which we think goes to the public policy question.
Now the time thing to note is that this is an incentive structure, so companies can acquit their obligation with a 150 per cent offset, so they would only pay 1.5 per cent of their revenue if they entered into commercial agreements of that value.
Epstein:
So I guess your argument there is they’ll do better if they enter into those arrangements, but –
Mulino:
And our goal is for them to enter into the agreements, not for the incentive to come in at all.
Epstein:
They can just say no, right? In Canada, Facebook just don’t run news, and they’ve done that, I think for more than 2 years. You’re the minnow, right? The government is much smaller than the Meta’s of this world. They can just say no, they just won’t run the news.
Mulino:
Well look, the incentive is structured so that if they say they’re not running news they are still obliged to pay the incentive, and that is exactly why the incentive is structured the way it is.
Epstein:
You can’t charge them for something they’re not using.
Mulino:
So they will then –
Epstein:
Sorry, can I interrupt? How do you justify charging them for something they are not using?
Mulino:
Well, because even if they claim they’re not putting news on their platforms, I would argue that news often seeps on to it in all sorts of other ways. So sometimes platforms claim they weren’t distributing news by taking off a particular kind of feed. But we know that news is seeping onto platforms in all sorts of ways through being shared and other ways.
What I would say is if you look at the commercial model of media, it is being fundamentally undermined by the world that we live in, and part of that is dealing with these very large digital platforms which have incredible market power.
Epstein:
Look, I’ll come to the property tax stuff in a moment, but you’re part of the government, you’re the Assistant Treasurer. You probably get a lot of support for hitting big tech, but you can also do it because the Australian media back this idea. The Australian media won’t back you when it comes to something like banning gambling ads. The perception is you only do the stuff the Australian media will back you on, and you’re too scared to do the things that the Australian media won’t back you on. Is that right?
Mulino:
No, I think, you know, when it looks – we go to the other issue that you raised, the government has taken a forward‑leaning policy on that issue.
Epstein:
But the ads are still there.
Mulino:
So – but look, what I’d say is that this is a long‑standing issue, the NBI, that we have been looking at in response to –
Epstein:
That’s the News Bargaining Initiative.
Mulino:
The News Bargaining Incentive. This is a long‑standing response to an emerging public policy challenge. Now the previous government entered into a world‑leading response to this with the News Media Bargaining Code, which we supported. We’ve seen that that is now not effective, and that’s why the incentive is needed to bring the big digital platforms back to the table to engage and negotiate on a fair basis.
Epstein:
It’s about 17 minutes to 9, you are listening to 774 with me, Raf Epstein. Daniel Mulino’s the Assistant Treasurer, he’s also the ALP MP for the seat of Fraser.
Just on the property tax breaks, Assistant Treasurer, I’m not asking you what you’re going to do because you won’t tell me anyway, is it really going to help with social cohesion?
Mulino:
So what I’d say on the social cohesion front is when we held the 3‑day Economic Reform Roundtable last year, and that had stakeholders from right across the board, social organisations, academics, experts, business, unions, the one thing that I think there was unanimous agreement on, or one of the few things, was that we need to have a mind to intergenerational fairness when we’re thinking about tax policy but policy more broadly.
Now I would say that this is not a zero‑sum game. It’s about making sure that young people get a fair break and that there’s a perception among many young people they’re not. We can look at a range of things the government’s doing on that front already. So, for example, I’d say that the HECS reduction was very much aimed at that. That there was an imbalance there that young people were paying too much when it came to payments through that system, and so we re‑weighted that. And that was with much support from even the architects of that scheme.
Epstein:
Are the current property taxes unfair to young people?
Mulino:
Well, what I would say on the tax front is that when it comes to the way we’re addressing housing, we need to look at it holistically. So we’re looking very much at supply, we’re looking at through the Housing Affordability Future Fund. We’ve put in place a measure for 5 per cent deposits for first home buyers. We’ll also look at taxes.
And so we do need to look at all the elements of this. And again, going back to reform roundtable where tax was one of the 3 key themes, and there was a day devoted to tax. The way in which we tax a range of forms of passive income was raised. We are looking at that, and I’m not going to get into the specifics, but it was – it’s fair to say that we need to look at the tax system as a whole with a mind to how do we make it fairer for young people.
Epstein:
Okay, so it is not fair to young people right now?
Mulino:
Well, I think we can always do better with our tax system. That’s the bottom line…
Epstein:
Are you also –
Mulino:
And that was one of the key themes.
Epstein:
So are you punishing older Australians?
Mulino:
I don’t see this as a zero‑sum game; I see it as improving the way that our system works. Again, I’d just take a step back and say that intergenerational fairness was one of the themes. Improving productivity was another one…
Epstein:
Sure.
Mulino:
..which benefits all generations. But again, that goes to young people because when you improve productivity and the long‑run growth of the economy, that helps the youngest most. And then it goes to the effectiveness and efficiency of our tax system.
We need to address all of these different important themes.
Epstein:
1300 222 774 is the phone number. Happy to hear what you’ve got – or what you think about what the Assistant Treasurer’s got to say. He is part of Anthony Albanese’s finance team.
Just a final question on this. The reason I asked if you’re punishing older people, the government has not ruled out looking a bit backwards with these changes. There’ll be people who will buy a house this month, and they’ll set it up under the current rules. Will they change on budget night? Will they be retrospective?
Mulino:
Well, look, this is obviously getting into the specifics of any particular measure, which I can’t talk to in advance of the Budget. That’ll be handed down very soon.
But I can say that in designing –
Epstein:
Can you rule them out – can you rule out it being retrospective?
Mulino:
In designing any kind of tax measures, look, we’re bearing in mind those overarching themes that I talked about, which are intergenerational fairness, productivity and the efficiency and effectiveness of the administrative procedures.
Epstein:
This might be the most revealing answer you give. What’s your coffee order?
Mulino:
Long macchiato.
Epstein:
Long macchiato, okay.
Mulino:
A classic in many people’s eyes. That’s my Italian heritage coming through.
Epstein:
Oh, okay. Do you get judged?
Mulino:
No.
Epstein:
Do you get judged well, poorly, not judged at all?
Mulino:
Well I think the baristas don’t judge me because I don’t put a sugar in it. My understanding is that a lot of baristas don’t like putting a sugar in that particular one.
Epstein:
You wouldn’t want to spoil the flavour. Thank you for coming in.
Mulino:
Thanks very much, Raf.