Media billionaire Kerry Stokes says it is unfair that companies like Google are a source of competition in Australia, while not having to pay taxes to take part.

Stokes says; “one government department recently allocated a huge amount of money to Google/YouTube to develop drama. And considering they pay no tax, and they are a competitor, and they don’t pay any licensing fees, we feel there needs to be a [regulatory] re-look ... at these issues to help create a level playing field.”

Mr Stokes controls Seven West Media, and made the comments at a recent shareholder event in Sydney.

He says Seven is one of the few media companies in Australia required to pay tax (which last year totalled $100 million) as well as fees to maintain a television broadcast licence. Google does not have such fees.

A treasury official reportedly said earlier this year that the Australian government is virtually powerless to taxe companies like Apple and Google, despite them taking on more and more of the media market.

There is however, an international move to impose regional taxes on multi-national groups. The push is driven by cash-strapped governments looking to take a slice of the money made remotely by the tech giants.

News reports in 2012 said Google’s Australian arm paid just $781,741 in tax the year before, despite pulling in an estimated $2 billion revenue from Australian ads.

“I’m not being critical of Google I think they are a fine company, doing a good job except I would like them to pay their fair share of tax, which should be greater than what we pay,” Mr Stokes said.

He went on to decry the $160 million annual licence fee for television networks, saying it put them at a severe disadvantage to online content providers.

“We are in a competitive area now where our content is available online, it's available by Telstra putting it online, it's available on Foxtel, it's available on other platforms which are not subject to having to pay fees,” Mr Stokes said.