Displaying items by tag: Josh Frydenberg

The Australian Government, it appears, does not believe in the old saying, "once bitten, twice shy". After being humiliated by Facebook once, when it tried to act tough over the media content laws which the government was trying to shove through Parliament, one government senator is looking to be shown up again.

Australian consumers are overwhelmingly in favour of small businesses being given the ability to choose the cheapest option to process debit card payments through Least Cost Routing (LCR), according to new research by eftpos.

The Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will lead a lineup of corporate leaders, politicians, bankers and economists at global investment bank Citi’s virtual annual Australia and New Zealand Investment Conference later this month.

Facebook has once again shown the Australian Government that it cares little about any edicts Canberra may have issued, snubbing SBS and The Conversation when they sought deals with the social media giant under the news media content legislation.

ACCC Commissioner Sarah Court has been appointed to the position of Deputy Chair at Australia’s national corporate, markets, financial services and consumer credit regulator, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC),

News Corporation has announced it has reached a multi-year agreement with Facebook, to provide news to users of the social media site Down Under.

A shade over two weeks since Treasurer Josh Frydenberg crowed that Australia had put in place "world-leading legislation" to bring Facebook and Google into line, no big news organisation has signed a deal with Facebook to share news content.

With the news media code now signed into law, it is time for all three entities involved in the drama that played out over the last few weeks — Google, Facebook and the Federal Government — to claim victory.

Veteran telecommunications consultant Paul Budde has summed up Tuesday's events in the stoush between the digital platforms and the Federal Government in a rather pithy way: "Facebook stays, everybody is happy. but nothing has changed."

ANALYSIS Despite all the brave talk emanating from Canberra, Facebook has comprehensively dictated the terms under which it will restore news content to Australians.

Social media giant Facebook has agreed to restore Australian news content in "coming days" after the Federal Government made additional amendments to the news media code bill that is currently in the Senate.

If the initial reaction to Facebook's sudden decision to cut Australians off from the site on Thursday was idiotic, it became even more ludicrous on Friday, with reactions from politicians and the media competing to be dubbed the silliest of the lot.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has made his reaction known to the blocking of news content in the country by Facebook – in a post on Facebook.

Both Google and Facebook have demonstrated to the Australian Government in no uncertain terms who exactly is calling the shots in the stoush over the news media code, but in diametrically different ways.

More Australian media deals with Google's News Showcase appear to be in the offing, aided by some government sweeteners, with a number of news publishers reported to be in discussions with the online advertising giant set to finalise agreements before the Australian Parliament passes the news media code into law.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has said he expects to see "some significant commercial deals" between Australian news publishers and digital platforms before the government votes on its news media code which is currently before Parliament.

The news media code will be considered in Parliament in the week beginning 15 February after the Senate Economics Legislation Committee submitted its report on the bill to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Friday evening.

Google has very cleverly got its way as far as the news media code is concerned, leading Australian politicians on and ensnaring them in a very neat trap. And the company has ensured that nobody will lose face as a result of all the threats.

Search behemoth Google, which is trying to muscle the Australian Government into accepting a news media code devised by itself, has contradicted its own threat to pull out of the market by slyly approaching smaller news organisations and trying to cut deals on its (Google's) terms.

It will be interesting to see who blinks first in the tussle between the digital platforms and the Australian Government: Google and Facebook or Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.