As you may know I am teaching Torts at the moment. We recently covered trespass to the person, which I admittedly have a soft spot for. I like it because trespass to the person actions are easily relatable. I also like it because it shows us how a number of areas of...
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Cruising, Pregnancy and Miscarriage- Waine v Carnival PLC t/as P&O Cruises Australia [2022] NSWDC 650
I recently read Waine v Carnival PLC t/as P&O Cruises Australia [2022] NSWDC 650. This case may be of interest to students in my Torts Law class. The plaintiff was 15 weeks pregnant when she started to show signs of losing her baby. At the time she was enjoying a...
Medical Negligence, Causation and Bariatric Surgery!!!
Woohooo…I am teaching causation in negligence actions again!! Causation is kinda cool but can also be super tricky… Essentially causation in a negligence action, relates to whether or not the defendant (alleged wrongdoer) caused the harm to the plaintiff (person who...
Duty of Care and Climate Change…
Nothing gets people more excited than talking about owing duties of care. For the uninitiated, duty of care in a negligence action relates to whether or not a defendant owes a legal duty to another. Within a negligence action, finding a duty of care is often easily...
Unless you are living under a rock, you would be aware that as of today facebook has blocked Australians from viewing news sites within their feeds.
This reaction is as a result of legislation which was recently passed by the House of Representatives. The Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2020 essentially mandates digital platforms such as facebook to pay news entities for their content. The Bill has not yet been ratified by the Senate.
In my opinion the premise behind the proposed legislation is honourable. The Explanatory Memorandum notes ‘This Bill establishes a mandatory code of conduct to help support the sustainability of the Australian news media sector by addressing bargaining power imbalances between digital platforms and Australian news businesses.’ The legislation essentially incentives news media companies and digital platforms to come to financial agreements with digital platform services for the use of their content.
We all know that media companies and journalists have been experiencing a tough gig in the past decade. In my opinion however, it has never been more important to have well researched and independent news conducted by highly skilled content creators. Journalists and the companies who employ them, should be treated fairly and remunerated for their important societal function.
One of the primary rationales for the introduction of this legislation was that the ACCC found there was a bargaining power imbalance between digital platforms and news media businesses. In response to these findings it was decided government intervention was needed, primarily due to public policy considerations. It was acknowledged- to house a strong democracy it is necessary to have a strong and independent democracy.
So, in my humble opinion, the proposed legislation is correct and honourable and appropriately reacting to a power imbalance. It will be fascinating to see how this plays out!!