AUSTRALIA will force Google and Facebook to pay for news content, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said today.

The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission will release guidelines in July on how to force the tech giants to pay for journalistic content siphoned from news media, he said.

Australian media have been hard hit by the Covid-19 crisis and competition from free distribution of news on digital platforms, with Australian Associated Press announcing last month that it would close. Journalists’ union the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance called it a “gross abandonment of responsibility by its shareholders, Australia’s major media outlets.”

Google and Facebook rake in the lion’s share of web advertising — 47 and 24 per cent of online advertising spending excluding classified ads in the country. Media organisations say this starves them of the revenue they need to keep producing the reportage the two corporations use to attract ads.

But attempts to make them pay up have foundered in other countries. A law requiring it to compensate news outlets for carrying their content in the way a radio station pays fees to broadcast songs backfired in Spain, where Google shut down Google News in retaliation. The impact was particularly severe on small and alternative media sites that rely on their content being easily found online and receive fewer direct visits to their websites.

In Germany, Google got around a law by only carrying news from publishers who agreed to be featured on its site for free. Those that refused suffered such rapid declines in traffic that they soon U-turned. Legislation in the European Parliament has also faced serious opposition from opponents who say it would have knock-on effects on people’s ability to share content online, again with a disproportionate impact on small and independent media.

Mr Frydenberg said that Canberra “won’t bow to their threats,” acknowledging that taking on the US-based platforms was “a big mountain to climb.” Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said Australia’s approach would be based on competition law, in contrast to European efforts rooted in copyright law.

Facebook’s managing director for Australia and New Zealand said it was “disappointed” and was investing more in supporting media amid the Covid-19 crisis. Google said it had engaged with “more than 25” Australian publishers over a voluntary code on carrying their content.