MEDIA RELEASE: Greens call for greyhound racing ban following NSW Auditor-General report into racing watchdog

16 July 2026

The NSW Auditor-General’s performance audit of the Greyhound Welfare & Integrity Commission (GWIC) has criticised the organisation for its failures in processes and the exercise of its functions regulating the greyhound racing sector in NSW.

The performance audit was conducted following Greens NSW MP Abigail Boyd writing to the Auditor General in August 2024, following another wave of scandals in the sector [link: https://www.audit.nsw.gov.au/our-work/requests-for-audit]. The audit report points to persistent gaps, inaccuracies and weaknesses in GWIC’s systems and activities, and reveals that the watchdog routinely fails to take any proactive regulatory work, instead relying on information from the industry itself.

The Greens NSW are calling on the Minns Labor government to shut down the greyhound racing industry in NSW for good, with a government-funded plan to transition workers and affected communities, safely rehome greyhounds, and return existing tracks to public green space, housing or other socially-beneficial uses.

Quotes attributable to Abigail Boyd, Greens NSW MP and spokesperson for Animal Welfare:

“The Auditor General has found GWIC’s effectiveness to be profoundly lacking - it is in essence a regulator that can’t or won’t regulate.

“We’ve long said this is an industry incapable of reform. What’s shocking to see is that the regulator seems to have taken the same view, and so has made no attempt to force the industry to. Instead we have a regulator that waits to be notified of offences, rather than taking a proactive regulatory approach. And even when they are notified it takes them 18 months to make a finding, resulting in a discounted lenient penalty, all because of GWIC’s own tardiness. Quite frankly, it’s a farce.

“I feel sorry for the staff who work at GWIC, many of whom I know have greyhounds’ best interests at heart when it’s clear that the government and organisation doesn’t. Of particular concern is information in this report regarding the profound risks to GWIC staff’s personal safety when dealing with greyhound racing participants, many of whom have histories of violence, aggression and gun ownership. These are known risks relating to known participants – if these participants can’t be trusted to behave safely towards the industry’s regulatory staff, how can they be trusted to properly look after the animals in their care?

“This is a cruel industry that just lurches from crisis to crisis, overseen by a toothless and captured regulator. Ultimately, no amount of regulation or political cover-up can save it. Greyhound racing is incapable of reform, and it’s only a matter of time before the NSW government is left with no choice but to shut it down for good - and in the meantime GWIC needs to start actually fulfilling the job they’ve been legislated to do.”

Read the Auditor-General's report: https://www.audit.nsw.gov.au/our-work/reports/regulation-of-greyhound-racing

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MEDIA RELEASE: Greens call for greyhound racing ban following NSW Auditor-General report into racing watchdog

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