CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS

Mr WILKIE (Clark) (16:00): I have received a whistleblower disclosure from veteran Tasmanian investigative journalist Mr Geoffrey Swan, a 10-year contributor to Tasmanian Times and who was acting chief editor of the publication until January. My office has had several dealings with Mr Swan this year via emails, phone calls and in person. Tasmanian Times was founded in 2003.

It holds about 64,000 articles and has been a reputable and trusted local publication for years. The documents provided to me by Mr Swan allege serious misconduct by the publication and its former owner and publisher, Mr Alan Whykes. Mr Swan claims that Tasmanian Times has been leveraging its reputation to quietly profit from the promotion of illegal offshore gambling.

According to Mr Swan's disclosure, when conducting an audit of the Tasmanian Times database he found 1,894 posts which contained hidden black-hat search engine tactics. Black-hat SEOs are features like hidden links and invisible text that are used to rank a website by violating search engine guidelines. They do this by manipulating search engine algorithms to increase a site's rankings.

In the case of Tasmanian Times, Mr Swan alleges that black-hat SEOs had been used to funnel readers towards unlicensed offshore casinos. The posts are invisible to ordinary readers but highly visible to Google, which trusts the masthead because of its decades of credible reporting. It is relevant here that the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 prohibits posting links to unlicensed offshore gambling services.

Therefore, if Mr Swan's allegations are correct, both Tasmanian Times and Mr Whykes stand accused of breaching the Interactive Gambling Act as well as misleading readers. To date, Mr Swan has referred his allegations to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the Australian Taxation Office, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

But, as is often the case with whistleblower matters I raise in this place, each organisation has so far failed to act. Accordingly, and as this matter falls across several portfolios, I call on the Prime Minister to now coordinate a whole-of-government response to Mr Swan's allegations. In closing, I would add that Mr Swan is a recipient of the 2026 Walkley Foundation's freelance journalism grant in relation to this matter.

I seek leave to table the documents provided to me by Mr Swan. Leave not granted.