Key facts
- The nswnewsroom bio says it was authorised by the NSW Labor state secretary.
- The account's posts are unpaid content, so they fall outside paid-advertisement authorisation rules, Guardian Australia reported.
- A NSW government spokesperson said the page was a Labor-affiliated social media page consistent with most major parties' practices.
- Victorian Labor's Don't Risk It Vic page spent $67,138 promoting posts between October 31 and November 6, per Meta's ad library.
- Victorian Labor said social media was an important way to reach Victorians who do not engage with traditional media.
The Instagram account nswnewsroom posted a reel on or before November 12, 2026 headed "Breaking" that said another Liberal MP had quit and almost a third were now gone. The post cited the Daily Telegraph and Jordan Lane, a New South Wales MP, as its source, and said Lane was the sixth sitting Liberal member to announce they would not re-contest their seat at the March 2027 election.
The account's bio says it was authorised by the NSW Labor state secretary, and it says it aims to keep readers up to date with news from the NSW government. Guardian Australia reported that the account first posted two weeks before November 12 and added its authorisation after reporting by the Sydney Morning Herald.
Andrew Hughes, an expert in political marketing at the Australian National University, told Guardian Australia the accounts take advantage of what he called a huge loophole in Australian political communication laws covering digital and social media. He said more people get their news primarily from digital and social media, raising the potential for information to be used against voters who are not engaged enough with politics to spot disinformation.
Because the posts are unpaid content, they are not subject to the same authorisation requirements as paid advertisements at state and federal level. In NSW, an authorisation in the account profile or on a website directly linked to the post is acceptable.
A spokesperson for the NSW government referred Guardian Australia to a statement shared with the Sydney Morning Herald, which said the page was a Labor-affiliated social media page, consistent with the practices of most major political parties and a number of minor parties across Australia.
Guardian Australia reported that a similar account, vicnewstoday, was set up in Victoria ahead of the Victorian state election in November 2026. Its bio carries an authorisation by Victorian Labor HQ, but its posts, including videos of Ben Carroll and ministers at press conferences, do not. In one post captioned "BREAKING: Liberals did a deal with 'the most anti-worker party'", Carroll criticises a preference deal between the Liberals and One Nation.
In late October, the Labor party launched a page titled Don't Risk It Vic, promoting posts that raise concerns about an alliance between the Liberal and One Nation parties. Meta's ad library shows the page was the highest-spending political advertiser in the country in the week to November 6, paying $67,138 to promote its posts between October 31 and November 6.
A spokesperson for the Victorian Labor Party said social media was an important way to communicate with Victorians where they are, particularly those who do not engage with traditional media, and said everyone deserves to hear the facts about what a Liberal-One Nation government would mean for health, schools, police and cost of living.
Monica Attard, former Media Watch host and professor of journalism practice at the University of Technology, Sydney, said in an age when social media was awash with deepfakes it was important for consumers and political parties to disclose clearly and always, and that the possibility of misuse or tampering would be relatively high.
Guardian Australia reported that ahead of the 2025 federal election it uncovered similar pages set up by Labor, the Coalition, Climate 200 and the campaign group Advance, all carrying basic authorisation messages but with names and profile pictures that did not immediately denote the source.