The Google files: Inside the lobbying that stalled New Zealand's media law
Sunday, 5 July 2026
Google and news publishers were given a private look at the Government's proposed changes to the law that would have made tech giants pay for New Zealand journalism before those changes went to Cabinet, briefing papers show.
After Google then refused to provide written feedback, Media Minister Paul Goldsmith then instructed government lawyers to explore a deal with the mega-company that would shelve the law, in return for Google maintaining its investment in New Zealand news.
But Google continued to oppose the bill and threatened to pull investment in news companies and news from its platform before Goldsmith put the law on hold.
Read More:
Google says it would stop linking to news if NZ media funding bill unchanged
Labour: Supreme Court tariff ruling removes Government’s ‘excuse’ on media law
Goldsmith admits Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill shelved because of Trump
The details of the behind-the-scenes negotiations with big tech companies was obtained by the Sunday Star Times under the Official Information Act and show how Google pressured the Government to drop the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill.
The legislation was inherited from the previous government and would have forced Google and Meta to negotiate payments with local news publishers, with an exemption pathway for platforms already investing fairly.
The relationship between Goldsmith and big tech began cordially.
After a June meeting with Google’s New Zealand country director, Caroline Rainsford, Ministry of Culture and Heritage officials noted the minister had 'thanked Google for working with officials' and for the 'voluntary investment it is providing', and ahead of a September meeting suggested he reiterate his 'gratitude'.
Officials wrote: 'In recent discussions, Google has been collaborative and positive, providing officials with helpful suggestions to improve the Bill.' Google's stated concerns were the need for a clear designation process, a fair dispute resolution process and a cap on financial liability, and its strong preference that the bill not continue in its current form.
Officials and Google agreed to hold a workshop to try to address those concerns in an amendment paper.
Officials sought permission from the attorney general at the time, Judith Collins, for a limited waiver to share the amendment paper with Google and the Newspaper Publishers Association (NPA) before Cabinet considered it.
Goldsmith told the Star-Times sharing amendments with stakeholders was not an unusual thing to do and in this case it was done due to “the unique and rapidly evolving nature of the bill”.
The amendment was shared on August 22, and the stakeholders were given a week to comment.
During its targeted consultation, the NPA told officials that it would be open to placing prescriptive investment requirements for tech platforms in legislation, provided the investment provided a pathway to consistent financial support.
Google did not provide any written feedback.
Notes on a September 6 meeting state that Google informed Goldsmith that “despite not providing any written comments, the amendment paper had not addressed its concerns and had made the bill worse overall”.
A month later, Google put out a public statement threatening to stop linking to NZ news sites if the bill passed.
“This bill proposes a 'link tax' that would require Google to pay simply for linking to news articles. While Google supports efforts to foster a sustainable future for New Zealand news, this bill is not the right approach,” Rainsford said at the time.
NPA public affairs director Andrew Holden then accused Google of 'corporate bullying' and said its position deliberately misrepresented the legislation.
“The bill is not a tax; it creates the environment for New Zealand media companies to sit down and have a proper commercial negotiation with big tech companies about their use of our journalism.”
Google also attempted to go over Goldsmith’s head and contacted the prime minister directly and requested a meeting. Christopher Luxon’s office passed this back to Goldsmith.
Luxon's diaries for that period show no meeting with Google. Asked by the Star-Times whether he had met the company, his office treated the query as an OIA request, meaning a response could take up to 20 working days.
In a November 8 meeting Google told Goldsmith that if the bill were to proceed it would “significantly reduce its current investments with New Zealand news businesses”.
It instead proposed to continue its current agreements with news businesses and provide additional investment in the local news industry.
The bill’s second reading was delayed in November, with Goldsmith saying publicly it was “not quite ready yet”.
Officials continued to work with Google and on December 4, Goldsmith instructed officials to engage with Crown Law to explore the creation of a Memorandum of Understanding between the tech giant and the New Zealand Government in return for the bill being put on hold.
A briefing notes that Crown Law and ministry officials had concerns about Google’s alternative option.
The details are redacted, but officials note a 'similar option' was progressed in California, where instead of forcing tech giants to pay for news content the state agreed to help fund newsrooms, a deal officials record was later reduced in value and criticised by journalists as a “disaster”.
In December, Goldsmith officially put the bill on hold citing a want to wait and see how Australia’s legislation goes - which requires tech platforms to make commercial deals with media outlets or pay a 2.25% levy on local revenues.
He also later said it was shelved because of concerns over how US President Donald Trump would react, telling Parliament: “As is highly obvious to everybody, circumstances changed somewhat at the end of 2024 with the US presidency changes, and a more cautious approach was adopted.”
Officials disputed Google's revenue claims
In May 2024 Google held commercial partnerships with 21 NZ media entities representing 50 mastheads, which officials believed would have made it eligible for an exemption.
Even so, a briefing noted news outlets were still struggling financially, with smaller, ethnic, indigenous and rural entities left without deals.
Meanwhile, the tech giants were making millions. Google's recorded New Zealand revenue was $78m in 2022, up from $58m the year before. But those numbers exclude the large service fee it sends its United States parent.
In 2022 Google sent $870m to that parent, up from $698m in 2021, which is roughly 11 times its locally recorded revenue. Officials separately estimated that Google earned about $944.9m from search advertising alone in New Zealand in 2023.
Google has repeatedly said it doesn't make 'meaningful' revenue from news and branded the law a 'link tax'.
In its submission it told a select committee that in 2020 revenue from clicks on ads against possible news-seeking queries was around $1.6m: 'The bulk of our revenue comes not from news-seeking queries, but from queries with commercial intent, like when someone searches for 'running shoes' and then clicks on an ad.'
But officials repeatedly told Goldsmith that this claim didn’t hold up and that “international research conflicts with its position”. A Swiss study estimated it made $718m annually from that country’s news content while a Columbia University study concluded Facebook owed $3.1b and Google owed $16.3b annually to US news publishers.
Google previously stated that it did not agree with either study’s findings, officials noted.
They explained the mechanism Google's denial left out - that news publishers create the content the search engine uses to answer queries, but 'if users do not click, and many do not, Google keeps all the advertising revenue that comes from that engagement'.
Over time users 'become less likely to navigate to a news media entity's webpage organically', they said.
Google, the NPA and the Ministry of Culture and Heritage did not respond to requests for comment before publication.