The NSW Greyhound Welfare and Integrity Commission used to boast it was the “gold standard” in greyhound racing regulation.
But with its mission of “Securing a prosperous industry by improving welfare & integrity”, GWIC has found that a “prosperous industry” and a “transparent industry” are impossible – and transparency is being reduced.
We’ve started to track GWIC’s attacks against transparency and openness and its growing culture of secrecy.
Removing details from the eTrac portal
eTrac was launched with great fanfare in September 2023 as the “world-first digital portal”, with the original aim to ensure “the welfare of our greyhounds by tracking and monitoring all NSW registered greyhounds in real time, at every stage of their life.”
Dogs that were deceased were publicly listed with a sub-category explaining their death, eg euthanased on-track injury, illness, old age, accident, etc. Retired dogs also had sub-categories of explanation, eg retired to 3rd party, participant, GAP, community rehomer, etc.
However, the public can no longer see deceased greyhounds on the eTrac portal or those dogs retired from the racing register.
In Oct 2025, GWIC noted that “Last week, it was brought to the attention of the Commission that the eTrac Public Search Portal was displaying data for interstate greyhounds, which is not data that is owned or managed by GWIC.”
GWIC refuses to reveal which state complained about eTrac.
GWIC now refuses to allow the public to see which dogs are deceased and how they died.
GWIC has now stopped using the phrase “whole of life tracking”.
Concealing details of deceased dogs
Like all other state bodies, GWIC refuses to disclose the causes of death of individual dogs or the names of those lost within the industry.
A Freedom of Information request for the names and causes of death of the 1,153 deceased dogs GWIC recorded in FY24-25 was denied by GWIC CEO Matthew Tutt. GWIC claimed that the system was based on self-reporting, and that extra scrutiny would threaten the honesty of the self-reporting. Shows you how honest racing participants are.
Refusing to provide details on individual dogs
GWIC refuses to provide additional information outside the quarterly reports, namely the names of individual dogs and their fates and how they died.
GWIC will not provide details to CPG queries about deceased dogs: “We don’t”.
GWIC will not confirm the names of dogs that die post-race from racing injuries: “We don’t release it.”
In one meeting, CPG provided GWIC with a list of 8 greyhounds that were seriously injured in racing and then died. We asked if GWIC could confirm they were racing deaths, and GWIC said “no”.
Protection of racing participants has priority over the sacrifice of greyhound lives. Like the industry as a whole, GWIC has denied that greyhounds are individual beings – they are just fragments of the gambling system.
Concealing Animal Welfare Committee minutes
The Animal Welfare Committee (AWC) was formed to provide advice to GWIC on greyhound welfare issues. It held its first meeting in May 2018. It held nine meetings in 2021. It did not publish minutes. CPG raised this issue in January 2022.
The first minutes of the AWC were published on the GWIC website for the December 2025 meeting – but only a meeting summary, and not actual minutes.
GWIC has since uploaded minutes for two meetings but at this stage refuses to publish the AWC minutes from earlier meetings.
Concealing the number of greyhounds scratched due to injury
GWIC has refused to answer CPG questions on the number of dogs scratched from racing due to injury: “It’s not data that we collect.”
However, to NSW Parliament Estimates Supplementary Questions in March 2025, GWIC revealed that 623 dogs were scratched in FY23/24.
Which surprised GWIC in the meeting with CPG.