The fallout from Britain's phone-hacking scandal is threatening to reach Australia, where Rupert Murdoch's Sky News is bidding to operate the nation's overseas television service, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.
Greens leader Bob Brown called yesterday for the government to investigate the ''ramifications'' for Australia of the behaviour of Mr Murdoch's News International in Britain.
Executives and journalists from Mr Murdoch's News of the World are under criminal investigation for hacking the telephones of celebrities, and allegedly a murder victim and the families of soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
The newspaper is to close down, and the scandal has threatened Mr Murdoch's pay television ambitions in the UK.
In Australia, the part-Murdoch-owned Sky is trying to wrest the contract to run the Australia Network from the ABC. An independent panel favoured Sky, but the government has sidelined the findings, extended the deadline and issued new tender requirements.
Mr Brown made clear that he wanted the Australian government to take the scandal into account in its dealings with Murdoch companies. In the Senate, he called on Communications Minister Stephen Conroy ''to investigate the direct or indirect ramifications to Australia of the criminal matters affecting the United Kingdom's operations of News International''.
The government revealed that there was no ''fit and proper person'' test included in the Australia Network tender. But a spokesman for Mr Conroy said the new tender criteria sought to identify what steps a bidder would take to ensure Australia's national interests were served.
(Source : Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union)
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