You're reading: Australia mulls privacy laws after hacking scandal

SYDNEY (AP) — Australia will consider strengthening its privacy laws in the wake of the British phone-hacking scandal that has shaken Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., the government said Thursday.

The proposed changes would give Australians the right to sue over serious breaches of privacy, something that is not guaranteed under current laws, Privacy Minister Brendan O’Connor said.

"Right now there is no general right to privacy in Australia, and that means there’s no certainty for anyone wanting to sue for an invasion of their privacy," O’Connor said in a statement. "The News of the World scandal and other recent mass breaches of privacy, both at home and abroad, have put the spotlight on whether there should be such a right."

The move comes amid growing public fury over allegations that staff at the now-defunct News of the World tabloid hacked into cell phones and bribed police for information on politicians, celebrities and crime victims.

The outrage has been especially intense over the tabloid’s decision to hack into the phone of a 13-year-old murder victim in the hopes of getting information for its stories.

On Wednesday, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Murdoch’s Australian media company, News Limited, had some "hard questions" to answer about its operations.

News Limited CEO John Hartigan called Gillard’s comments unjustified and insisted there was no link between News Corp.’s operations in the U.K. and News Limited in Australia.

O’Connor told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio on Thursday that the government is not suggesting the Australian press is guilty of conduct similar to what has happened in the U.K.

But he said the uproar over the tabloid’s actions has made a debate over the right to privacy necessary.

"This government strongly believes in the principle of freedom of expression and also the right to privacy," he said in a statement. "Any changes to our laws will have to strike a balance between the two ideals."

The public will be allowed to submit opinions on the proposal, which was among a slew of recommended changes to the nation’s privacy policies put forward by the Australian Law Reform Commission in 2008.

The government plans to release a discussion paper on the issue later Thursday.

"People care about privacy and so they should," Gillard told reporters in Brisbane. "They also care about freedom of the press and so they should. So we’ll obviously be seeking views on how these things can best work together."

Leader of the opposition Liberal Party Tony Abbott said he would consider supporting a change in privacy laws, but not if they were used to silence the media.

"The last thing I want to do is to support anything which is a thinly veiled attempt to intimidate the press," he told reporters in Melbourne. "Politicians don’t always like the coverage that they get, but if you are in public life you have got to take the rough with the smooth."

News Limited said last week that it would launch a review of editorial spending over the past three years to confirm that payments to third parties were for legitimate services.

On Thursday, the Australian Press Council said it would appoint two former Victoria state supreme court judges to assess the review.