Well, I don't know the corporate structure of Australian news outlets very well, but it sounds like someone is jumping the gun a tad.
The Kindle isn't in Australia yet (with no ETA), the Apple tablet rumor is literally 8 years old (and any similar device will have a web browser on it anyway, for free news access), and Sony doesn't offer news / magazine subscriptions yet. Not sure if Sony even has an ETA for that yet.
That said, it does sound like Amazon kinda gives newspapers and magazines the shaft -- iirc they take 60% of the revenues. So it makes sense for the chains to take a preemptive swipe at the terms.