Australia may review media laws

Australia’s government may review media laws in the wake of the phone hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s British paper the News of the World, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said today, as an influential party demanded a probe into media ownership and regulation.

Australia’s influential Greens Party called on Wednesday for a wide-ranging parliamentary inquiry into media ownership and regulation, and questions Australian-born Murdoch’s domination of the country’s newspapers. Murdoch’s News Ltd dominates the Australian newspaper industry, commanding nearly three-quarters of daily metropolitan newspaper circulation.

On Thursday, it denied speculation in Britain’s Telegraph newspaper that Rebekah Brooks, at the centre of the hacking storm as former News of the World editor and CEO of News International, might take over one of Mr Murdoch’s interests in Australia. “That’s not true,” News Ltd spokesman Greg Baxter said of the Telegraph report.

Greens Senator Bob Brown suggested Australian media law may need to include a “character test” clause for ownership and also questioned the issue of foreign ownership of Australian media. “Why (do) we have the biggest concentration of press ownership, and that’s by News (Ltd), in the democratic western world?” asked Mr Brown.

Mr Murdoch, who now has US citizenship, started his global media empire in Adelaide when he inherited the now defunct Adelaide News from his father, Sir Keith Murdoch. “I think ownership of the media is important. I think Australians would like to see Australian ownership of the media,” said Mr Brown.

Mr Murdoch owns 150 national, capital city and suburban news brands in Australia. He also has a 25 percent stake in pay television operator Foxtel and 30 percent interest in 24-hour news channel Sky News Australia. Sky News TV in Australia is in a battle with the Australian Broadcasting Corp to run the country’s overseas TV network - Australia Network.

The Greens want a media inquiry to look at whether a new statutory media watchdog, which oversees all media, is required. The parliament will consider the media inquiry issue in August when it next sits.

(Source: Reuters via Media Network Weblog)