Australia: News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am very happy to take my noble friend’s suggestion back to colleagues in the department, but I know that we are in regular discussion with all the groups he mentioned.

[Baroness Kidron (CB) [V]]

I welcome the Australian Government’s action in creating a mechanism to distribute the value of news media more fairly. I hope that, when we do similarly, we will be able to ensure that it benefits the entire news ecosystem, not only parts of it. Deeply worrying was the spectre of the Australian Government revising their domestic legislation as a result of a series of phone calls with Mark Zuckerberg. Of course we need to hear the views of all stakeholders but, given that Facebook is clearly using its monopoly power and is willing to resort to bullying tactics to revise the domestic legislation of a sovereign state, does the Minister agree that, during the period in which we are working democratically on a number of regulatory fronts, including the online safety Bill, competition law and malicious communication offences, all interaction between Facebook and the Government should be on the record in committee hearings and other public arenas so that it cannot undermine the transparent, democratic legislative process that we all pride ourselves on?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government believe that social media companies must be held to account for the consistent and transparent enforcement of their terms and conditions for those using their sites. That includes online safety, to which the noble Baroness referred, but also protecting people’s freedom of speech. We are establishing a regime through the online safety Bill and the digital markets unit that will do this transparently.