Currently, the way it stands especially for magazines and journals, if they contain less than 5% advertising there is a full GST rebate, and of course it's true for books, where there is typically no advertising. For electronic journals, however, there is no rebate. It doesn't matter whether they contain advertising or not. It's exactly the same text and product, except that it's delivered in a different format—electronic, as opposed to print. The current taxation rules don't cover this new format, if you like, even though in any terms there's no difference.
On October 24th, 2006. See this statement in context.