Treasurer Jim Chalmers backs Australian parents as | Australian Markets

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has stated he’ll defend Australian parents and “protect kids online” as US tech giants transfer to focus on the nation’s digital trade and regulation legal guidelines.

Meta, Alphabet, Apple and X have lodged an official criticism with America’s Office of the United States Trade Representative, singling out Australia’s News Media Bargaining code, native content material necessities and AI regulation as examples of “unfair trade practices”.

The 25-page criticism, compiled by the Computer and Communications Industry Association and lodged on March 11, claims native legal guidelines are unfairly stripping billions of {dollars} in income from US corporations working in Australia.

Mr Chalmers, talking on Sky News on Friday morning, stated it was “not surprising” the tech giants would take an adversarial view to laws dictating their operations, however his authorities would make selections in Australia’s “national interest”.

“To protect kids online, for example, or to make sure there’s a level playing field in our media, with our media organisations,” he stated.

“Those are our motivations. We’re not surprised that from time to time the tech giants will have different views about that.

“But our job is to implement the best set of arrangements that we can to look after Australians online.”

The financial energy of US tech has exploded over the previous twenty years.

Apple’s market capitalisation alone is about $5 trillion, which is bigger than the whole Australian financial system.

But the giants have expressed anger over native laws forcing them to divert earnings to different components of the Australian financial system.

“The News Media Bargaining Code requires US online service providers, when designated, to pay Australian news publishers for the links and snippets,” the criticism doc states.

“Currently, the two companies targeted by the law pay $250m annually through deals that were coerced through the threat of this law.

“However, with the threat of the new ‘incentive’ tax from the Australian government, this cost is likely to significantly increase.”

The criticism additionally calls out native content material necessities for streaming and leisure manufacturing corporations and proposed laws round AI that the affiliation claims would add “significant compliance burdens” on American corporations.

Tech titans like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Tesla’s Elon Musk and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos moved to court docket US President Donald Trump following his victory final November and revel in entry to the White House.

“It’s self-evident that they are very close with the US administration,” Mr Chalmers stated.

“Our focus and our job is to make our case in the US, as we have been doing, but to also make sure we continue to make the best decisions that we can for Australia.

“I think a lot of people around the country, not just parents but including parents, they want to make sure there are appropriate protections for people online.

“The tech giants won’t always like that, won’t always agree with that, but we’ve got to do that job on behalf of the people of Australia and there will be different views about how we go about that as we roll it out.”

The criticism might doubtlessly spark a new entrance in Mr Trump’s trade struggle in opposition to Australia after he slapped a 25 per cent tariff on Australian metal and aluminium.

The criticism adopted a call from the trade workplace for remark from US industry teams about discriminatory practices and taxes their members face in overseas markets.