THE chief executive of Fairfax Media, Greg Hywood, has criticised a newspaper owned by its rival News Ltd for equating the phone hacking scandal in Britain to an investigation of a political database by Fairfax's Melbourne broadsheet, The Age.

Mr Hywood defended the coverage last November of privacy concerns raised by details kept on a Labor Party database, authorised access to which was provided by an undisclosed source worried about what it contained.

The Australian headlined a front-page article yesterday: ''Age accused of hacking hypocrisy'', quoting a barrister, Peter Faris, as saying its conduct in the database story last year was close to corruption. He said it was ''a bit rich'' for The Age to now lead the charge against the Murdoch press in Australia.

The investigation detailed how Labor kept profiles of constituents and their stands on issues such as gay rights, the environment and abortion.

The Age editor, Paul Ramadge, said: ''This was a story with significant public interest - a powerful, highly influential organisation collecting private information on voters without their knowledge and giving campaign workers access to it.''

Mr Hywood endorsed that, saying: ''Ethics and quality journalism are the core of Fairfax. We will not let such baseless attacks stand unaddressed. To claim a moral equivalence between this entirely legitimate journalistic activity and the illegal hacking of telephones systemically practised by News International's News of the World is entirely spurious. Those who claim otherwise don't understand the ethical framework of journalism or are pursuing other agendas.''