Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O’Connor launched a consultation process on a new statutory right for people to sue for “serious invasion of privacy,” pointing to increased public unease after the News of the World scandal.

“The News of the World phone hacking drama is making people across the world sit up and think about their own media landscape: what’s acceptable and what’s not,” O’Connor wrote in The Australian newspaper.

The plans to tighten privacy laws come three years after the Australian Law Reform Commission concluded Australians should have the statutory right to sue. Previously rights and damages have been determined in ad hoc legal decisions

Media companies, including Rupert Murdoch’s Australian arm News Ltd. and Australia’s Fairfax Media, have previously opposed any privacy reform as a potential brake on freedom of speech.

O’Connor, who is also privacy minister, said he hoped any legislation to come out of a discussion process would balance press freedoms against the rights of ordinary people to a private life.

“The great irony, of course, is that a newspaper famed for its coverage of scandal is the greatest story of scandal in the world. But maybe there’s a silver lining: greater privacy protection for us,” he said.

Greg Baxter, director for corporate affairs at News Ltd, told ABC News Radio there was no evidence of any link between the UK hacking scandal and Australia.

“There isn’t any link between what’s happened at News of the World and the way we run our business here,” he said. “There is no evidence that sort of practices are occurring in News Ltd. or any other media organization here.”

The launch of a consultation period for privacy reform comes as Australia’s influential Greens party, which holds upper house balance of power, has called for a wider parliamentary inquiry into concentration of media ownership and privacy issues.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said on Wednesday that Australians generally had “hard questions” that they wanted answered by News Ltd. executives, but did not say whether she would support the Greens proposals.

News Ltd. chief John Hartigan said on Wednesday there was “absolutely no connection between events in the UK and our business in Australia,” adding News Ltd. had answered all questions on the issue openly.

News Ltd, the Australian arm of News Corp, controls 70 percent of Australia’s newspaper readership market. Lawmakers will decide whether to support a review when parliament resumes in August, after the current winter break.

Senior Australian ministers have for months accused News Ltd. of biased treatment targeting the minority Labor government, with Communications Minister Stephen Conroy this week accusing the company of campaigning for “regime change.”