Wednesday, 23 September 2026

 Anthony MARSH (Nepean) (19:20): (1857) My adjournment matter is for the Special Minister of State. The action I seek is that the minister in the lead-up to the election use every available measure to protect Victorians from dangerous electoral disinformation, including material masquerading as independent local news. On the Mornington Peninsula there is a particularly ugly example. Jamie ‘Jay’ Scicluna is the publisher of Somerville Times, Peninsula Local and STPL News and likes to pretend he is a journalist. But residents and businesses deserve to know the person behind the STPL dirt sheet – so too should every political candidate who chooses to engage and advertise with him and benefit from his propaganda. Scicluna is a twice-failed council candidate, once endorsed by Labor, and a former ACTU thug who described himself as a proud ALP hack. During the 2016 Wyndham council elections, Scicluna posted serious allegations about his Greens opponent. It was grubby politics of the worst kind. Earlier this year he was before the Magistrates’ Court over more than $16,000 in unpaid parking and toll fines. But this is far from the most shocking part of Scicluna’s sordid record.

In 2024 the Frankston Magistrates’ Court found that Scicluna had stalked and harassed a Somerville woman. The magistrate described his conduct as demeaning, derogatory and also intimidating. The court heard Scicluna was ‘out for blood’ and ‘won’t stop until he destroys her’. A two-year personal safety intervention order and a firearm prohibition order followed. Then there was another woman, his former accountant. After she chased him up for unpaid invoices, Scicluna sought an intervention order against her, only to withdraw it before a contested hearing. The court later found the application was frivolous and ordered him to pay $5000 towards the legal costs. The man who has appointed himself judge and jury of others on the peninsula then failed to front court over his own costs order. The magistrate signed a warrant for his arrest.

Then there is the troubling online conduct. Using the STPL News moderator account, Scicluna asked for help getting revenge on two businesses in a Reddit group called UnethicalLifeProTips. He described circumstances matching those of these two women, said he wanted to completely discredit them and asked strangers for any way to unethically destroy their businesses. This is a deranged political abuser using the veneer of journalism to pursue grudges, settle scores and push a political agenda. He relentlessly attacks those he regards as enemies while using his platform fuelled by AI content and fake followers to prop up his political mates. There is nothing courageous or independent about it, and it is not journalism. Even the Mornington Peninsula shire has had enough. In January it took the extraordinary step of formally ceasing engagement with Scicluna and his grubby organisation, citing expectations of ethical conduct, fair and accurate reporting and respectful behaviour. Scrutiny is welcomed, but political vendettas and disinformation must not sail under the flag of so-called independent community news.

Victorians deserve to know who is behind the headlines. Electoral disinformation does not always arrive from a foreign state or an anonymous bot farm. Sometimes it has a website, a Facebook page and a sad, lonely, bitter agitator calling himself a journalist. On the Mornington Peninsula that man is Jamie ‘Jay’ Scicluna.