Anthony Albanese is ripping off Australian taxpayers by continuing the relationship Scott Morrison and the Liberals had with Lachlan Murdoch and Rupert Murdoch to shakedown Google and Facebook while turning a blind eye to the fact that Google and Facebook pay very little tax in Australia.

It’s a scam that has hit a major hurdle as Facebook issued a statement on the 29th of February in effect saying they will no longer be stood over by the Australian government, who are doing it on behalf of the Murdoch’s and old media companies, and will stop paying Australian media companies this year.

The scam works like this:

1. Google, Facebook and other major foreign companies pay very little tax in Australia because of weak tax laws. This means Australian public miss out on the benefits of the government having $billions more to spend on the Australian public.

2. Instead of making Google and Facebook pay their fair share of tax, the previous Scott Morrison government forced Google and Facebook to pay Australian media companies for using their content. The reality is Google and Facebook do not use the old media’s content and send traffic to the old media by having their articles / videos show up in searches and shared links on Facebook etc.

3. So instead of Google and Facebook being forced to pay their fair share of tax which would benefit all Australians, the government is forcing Google and Facebook to pay Australia’s old media companies which make the Murdoch’s richer who then use the money to buy houses, boats and planes worth $billions.

Why is the Australian government helping Australian media companies run a financial shakedown of Google and Facebook?

News Corp is not a media company, it is a propaganda company impersonating a media company that is used to help the rich get richer.

It is only in April 2023 that I reported: “Rupert Murdoch and his companies Fox Corp and News Corp are on the ropes after agreeing to pay Dominion Voting Systems $1.17 billion ($US 787.5 million) for defamation after Fox promoted lies that Dominion helped rig the 2020 US Presidential election.” (Click here to read more)

Why should Australian taxpayers in effect be subsidising Australia’s old media companies who publish propaganda that undermines Australian democracy?

How many Labor Party voters support Prime Minister Anthony Albanese helping the Murdoch’s get richer?

NSW Premier Chris Minns, News Corp’s Lachlan Murdoch and Prime Minster Anthony Albanese – 23-2-24

The federal government and Australian media companies go on the attack against Facebook

The SMH reported on the 5/3/24: 

Pressure mounts on Facebook to be part of solution to ‘problem they’ve caused’

The federal government could use tax law and content rules to maximise pressure on Facebook to pay for Australian content, with former competition regulator Allan Fels backing the case for tougher action to force the outcome.

Days after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said “all options” were on the agenda, the competition boss said the government would be justified in considering tax rules, age verification and other big decisions in the light of the clash over content payments.

But another former chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Graeme Samuel, questioned the case for action and said Facebook and its corporate owner, Meta, were likely to avoid payments by switching off local news. (Click here to read the article)

Facebook did the exact same thing in Canada in August 2023 and the Canadian government and Facebook are still at a standoff. Reuters reported on the 15/12/2023: 

Ottawa will keep pushing Meta to comply with a new law requiring large internet companies to pay Canadian news publishers for their content, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday, but the Facebook parent stood by its decision to block news sharing rather than pay. (Click here to read more)

The Guardian reported on the 6/3/2024:

Misleading clickbait is prevalent on Facebook and Instagram in Canada after Meta’s news ban. Could it happen in Australia?

Misleading viral clickbait dominates Facebook and Instagram in Canada after Meta pulled news from its platforms nine months ago, according to an expert. Now Australia could face a similar scenario online with the company preparing to battle the Australian government over payments to news organisations.

Last week Meta announced it would no longer pay Australian news publishers, prompting the Australian government to explore the use of legislative powers to force the platform to negotiate with news media for payment.

The dispute has raised the possibility Meta will block Australian news outlets from posting links to their content on Facebook and Instagram, as it did for six days in 2021, and has done in Canada since mid-last year.

Experts say the Canadian ban has done little to hurt the social media giant, but has inflicted damage on the news outlets Canada wanted to help most. (Click here to read the article)

Update: I have just published the below video on this matter:

If Facebook stop paying will Google stop paying?

One of the concerns for the media companies is if Facebook stop paying will Google also stop paying.  

No one knows the totals of the different contracts with the media companies but estimates range around the $200 to $250 million that Google and Facebook are paying Australian media companies per year.

The federal government should start making Google and Facebook pay their fair share of tax

My guess is that Google and Facebook should be paying between $3 to $5 billion in tax per year in total. I make that estimate based on the SMH reporting in May 2023 “Google pulled in a record $8.4 billion in revenue from Australia last year but channelled most of the money offshore via reseller agreements” and only “paid $92 million in income tax”. (Click here to read more)

I think the reason that Facebook has decided to stop paying Australian media companies is because they can. They know the Australian government won’t follow through with the threat to make them pay more tax because then the Australia government would have to make all foreign companies pay more tax which they won’t do because they haven’t done for decades. 

When political parties are in opposition they jump up and down and say how foreign companies should pay their fair share of taxes but once in power none of the political parties follow though and do something about it.

The biggest worry for taxpayers should be when Facebook do stop paying Australian media companies in a few months will the Australian government use taxpayers’ money to subsidise the old media companies. If that happens it is fraud and theft on a huge scale, but the old media companies won’t tell you that because they have their noses in the trough. 

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