That's the thing - Google isn't bailing out due to ethics, they're bailing out because basically the code requires them to hand over a whole bunch of money to multinational news companies in exchange for.... ...nothing that every other entity in Australia couldn't get for free.
It creates an artificial barrier to two specific companies. It's about as market-interfering as you can possibly get.
And whilst government interference in the market can be good when it's to protect consumers, and even under some circumstances when it protects local businesses and the local economy, in this case it's specifically to protect multi-national news organisations.
And by "protect", I mean "give additional bonuses to", because they weren't actually under threat by having their content linked to on the web in the first place.