‘Disturbing’ MP abuse ramps up

More MPs are reducing their public outings, fearing being home alone, changing their routines and losing time from work as a result of abuse and harassment, new research reveals.

The research, published last Wednesday in Frontiers in Psychiatry, surveyed 54 MPs in 2022. It found threats had increased and were of a more disturbing nature when compared to a similar study done in 2014.

Lead author Professor Susanna Every-Palmer, from Otago University, said the intensity of abuse increased hugely during the heights of the Covid-19 pandemic, and had not fallen away.

“Disturbingly, women were at significantly higher risk of certain types of social media harassment including gendered abuse, sexualised comments, threat of sexual violence, and threats toward their family,” she said.

Of the 54 MPs who participated, 98% said they had experienced harassment, ranging from disturbing communication to physical violence. Nearly half of women MPs, 46%, were fearful for their safety at home, compared to 5% of men.

More than a quarter (28%) of MPs, who were surveyed in 2022, had gone to private security companies for help.

MPs also gave harrowing accounts of their experiences, which included having a departmental vehicle tampered with, and a person online claiming to know their address and wanting to damage their property while their teenage daughter was home alone. One described an instance where their red alert safe hub, an app where they can raise an alarm and deploy emergency services, failed. When police arrived, they were outnumbered.

There was nothing to suggest the level of vitriol levelled at MPs had reduced as a result of the change in government.

The majority had increased their security at home and at work but many felt there was insufficient support.This was despite the 2023 Budget adding $14 million over four years to extra security measures for MPs.

Fellow author, forensic pyschologist Dr Justin Barry-Walsh, said the abuse and harassment had serious consequences and could weaken democracy and human rights because it could drive women out of public life. Barry-Walsh, who is a consultant forensic psychiatrist at the Fixated Threat Assessment Centre, said it was “profoundly unfair” that women were bearing the brunt of abuse on the basis of their gender. “I find that very disturbing,” he said.