What the minister for fun needs to get serious about

May 14, 2025

Welcome to a midweek edition of Unmade. Today: We know the new ministerial lineup. Four of them will influence the media and marketing world

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The four ministerial portfolios that shape the media and marketing world

So we have a minister for fun.

Anika Wells, already the sports minister, has additionally picked up the communications portfolio from Michelle Rowland who has become Attorney General.

It’s not quite the mega ministry of the British Culture Secretary whose brief also includes the arts (that still sits with Tony Burke) but it’s getting closer.

Wells has much to do.

Most pressing is the dangerous question of whether the stalled sports betting reforms will be revived.

As the previous government dragged on, it became increasingly clear that a political decision had been made to slow walk the betting reforms, despite cross party and public support for restrictions.

It’s possible this was a favour for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s friend Peter V’landys who will soon get down to business on selling the next round of NRL TV rights currently held by Nine and Foxtel.

The value of those rights would be diminished without the promise of sports betting ad revenue (even if it is legislated away after being the rights deal is signed). It’s possible any significant move has been paused until after the deal is done. Certainly there’s been no better explanation for the delay in what had once had that bipartisan support.

Wells, a lawyer by training, will also need to quickly come up to speed with the news media bargaining code. That will be alongside her counterpart in the treasury. That’s likely to be Daniel Mulino, replacing Stephen Jones who stood down at the election (however, the Treasury had not responded to my question about which minister within the department the policy would fall to at the time of posting).

The platforms will hardly be able to believe their luck having two newbies getting to grips with the complicated issue.

Factor in the political dynamite of Trump’s focus on tariffs, and the concept of the News Bargaining Incentive - do deals with local media or be whacked with a levy - and the challenge of extracting dollars from the platforms becomes even tougher.

A further issue that sits across Treasury and the communications industry is that of the offshoring of most of the revenue of the digital platforms.

International tax minimisation is an all-economy problem, but service companies such as the social media platforms are the principal proponents. That Facebook is allowed to pretend that an ad sold to a business in Melbourne, possibly with the help of a salesperson in Sydney, and then viewed by a user in Brisbane, is somehow a transaction conducted in Ireland, is preposterous.

PwC’s undermining of the previous attempt to legislate for this is why that organisation deserves its local oblivion.

Simpler versions of minimising profits - for instance, Netflix head office recharging Netflix Australia almost all of its revenue, and only paying tax on the profit on what’s left needs to be addressed too. In a digital services world, a levy on digital revenue not profit, and applied where the customer actually is, seems to be the only answer.

Speaking of Netflix, the question of local quotas for international streamers is another policy that was kicked into the long grass prior to the election.

In the other direction, they will need to consider last month’s Trump hand grenade, his thought bubble of a tariff on movies made in “foreign lands” like Australia. Australia’s screen industry is dependent on overseas productions.

And when it comes to A.I. policy, that previously fell to industry minister Ed Husic, who lost his cabinet place. That brief has gone to Tim Ayres.

With a strong majority, Labor now has runway to tackle these issues - if it has the appetite to piss off the people inviting them to some of Australia’s most fun sporting occasions.

Wells and co will be spending a lot of time being entertained in private boxes at sporting events. We’ll find out soon enough whether they are willing to accept some awkwardness over the mini burgers.

SWM and SCA push up on the Unmade Index

Seven West Media and Southern Cross Austereo continued their charge on the ASX yesterday.

SWM gained 3.6% to land on a market capitalisation of $215m, its best since the beginning of April, SCA rose 1.3% to $182m, its best in almost a year.