There was one notable absence last month at a series of critical government meetings about the laws that led to the million dollar deals between tech platforms and news publishers.

Mia Garlick and Josh Machin, who lead Meta’s policy team in Australia, and head of ANZ news partnerships Andrew Hunter, were nowhere to be seen in Sydney. Meta sources say it was nothing personal - a late invite from Australian Treasury and scheduling clashes - but it’s hard to believe that not a single local executive could find the time to attend a gathering that has implications for Facebook’s business model globally.

The symbolism was telling at the very least.

The $US458.4 billion ($AU658.9) billion company, which runs Facebook and Instagram, has recently become critical of the deals it has struck across the world. It began telling US publishers last week it had no intention of renewing contracts for use of their articles in its dedicated news tab.

Those discussions, which coincided with Meta’s first-ever decline in quarterly sales, have reignited concerns in Australia the social media giant may have similar intentions when their deals expire in about two years time. The absences at the Sydney meetings with treasury officials only amplified that.

Meta was easily the most vocal critic of Australia’s news media bargaining code and went to extreme measures - removing all news from its platform - to avoid having to comply with legislation introduced by parliament last year. While it effectively complied in the end, Meta’s recent rhetoric suggests it is considering a reverse ferret.

The absence of Garlick, Meta’s director of public policy for APAC, and Machin, head of public policy in Australia, was contrasted with Google, whose team - Lucinda Longcroft (director of government affairs and public policy) and Shilpa Jhunjhunwala (head of news partnerships in ANZ) - attended roundtables in Sydney. They were eager to talk about agreements Google had signed with 82 publishers, representing more than 200 mastheads.

A Meta spokesperson said its move in the US has no impact on “current deals” in Australia and that publishers were informed of this. Privately, it is saying it is too early to speculate what it means for future deals. But local head of news partnerships, Andy Hunter, is not being subtle about the future.

Meta has publicly criticised the deals for only benefiting shareholders and paying debt. Yet media organisations say they are spending it on hiring journalists and other media positions that will support newsrooms in the long term. There is plenty of evidence to support the media industry’s claims. Any removal of Meta funding would hinder those plans and cause a headache for the new government.