Australia will raise the number of deals large tech firms must strike with local news outlets under a revamp of its media licensing laws to be introduced to parliament on Thursday (Aug. 13), the government said, ‌adding the measure would distribute advertising revenue to more domestic outlets.

The changes, according to a Reuters report yesterday from Sydney, also commit the government to giving five percent of funds raised under the scheme to the Australian Associated Press (AAP), the formerly industry-owned newswire service, which now runs as a non-profit.

Changes made after discussions between government and opposition would also require digital ⁠platforms to strike deals with at least eight media companies, up from six in an earlier draft.

The government also reinstated a cap limiting any single deal to 25 percent of a platform’s levy liability under the law, which is equal to 2.5 percent of a company’s Australian advertising revenue, with the amount they pay offset by the value of deals they strike.

The legislation revives Canberra’s effort to channel money from large technology companies to Australian news organisations whose content helps drive user engagement and advertising revenue on ‌their ⁠platforms.

“People access news in different ways and from different sources, which is why we made changes to the distribution scheme to better support smaller and diverse media organisations,” said Communications Minister Anika Wells in a statement, according to the Reuters report.

Australia’s original 2021 media bargaining law required Google and Facebook owner Meta to ⁠negotiate payment deals for news content, with a government-appointed arbitrator empowered to set terms if negotiations failed.