Following the passing of the Mandatory News Media Bargaining Code in Federal Parliament yesterday, Solstice Media, publisher of InQueensland, signed a Letter of Intent with Facebook to pay for its public interest journalism.

Solstice is one of the first independent news publishers to sign an agreement with Facebook, having previously struck a similar deal with Google.

“This is a huge win for independent journalism as our content will be paid for and promoted worldwide,” said Solstice Managing Director, Paul Hamra.

“It is also a win for the smaller publishers who now have a new way of funding important journalism.

“For InQueensland it will increase our editorial resources – in a state where there has been a lot of journalism cuts and redundancies by the dominant player, News Corp, over the past year.”

Facebook pages for news organisations, including InQueensland, were restored this morning, less than a day after the bargaining code passed parliament. The government agreed to change the code after the tech giant banned Australian users from accessing news.

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said he was pleased to see news return to Facebook despite having to make changes to the original bill.

“What’s clear to us is that what has transpired in recent weeks in Australia has very much been a proxy battle for the world with major global ramifications,” Frydenberg told Sky News.

“If this was so easy other countries would have done it long ago.”

Prime Minister Scott Morrison discussed the issue with his Japanese counterpart Yoshihide Suga overnight.

-With AAP