Bolstering the safety of MPs is something the Parliamentary Service have been working on this Parliamentary term. Photo: VNP / Daniela Maoate-Cox
Online abuse has become part of the job for many politicians, MPs said at a panel this week, hosted by Manatū Wāhine Ministry for Women, marking the launch of the Free to Lead campaign.
MPs from both Labour and National spoke candidly about their experience of online harm, and how it's changing our political landscape.
Anyone who uses the internet will know that a comments section can be a pretty toxic place, perhaps even more so when the topic is politics.
Aotearoa has always prided itself on how accessible our elected officials are, but the number of dodgy, abusive, or even violent interactions experienced by MPs has quietly increased.
Thirty years ago being an elected official meant facing criticism from the media, political opponents and sometimes the odd heckler in public. These days an MP can wake up, check their phone and see a stream of negative comments, some deeply personal, even bordering on threatening.
Labour's Duncan Webb and National's Greg Fleming said that as males, their experience of abuse had rarely been personal and most attacks were on their political ideas or beliefs.
Studies both here and abroad confirm what many have long suspected - that female officials are being disproportionately targeted.
"This is a gendered issue, right?" said Webb. "And sure, I've had nasty comments and I've had incidents at markets and so on, but the power dynamics are entirely different. So I don't think it can really be compared effectively. I am not deeply affected by most of the comments I see. It's a very rare day where it really hurts. But I understand entirely that's not the case for everyone else."
National's Nancy Lu said disinformation spread online about her marriage during an election campaign, and there wasn't an obvious way to combat the claims.
"We don't have a way to fight back. It's not like I can just stand up in front of Parliament and …have a press conference [to] make it clear. ...So it got us thinking for quite some time in terms of what we do to protect ourselves - me and [my husband]. He's also in a fulltime job, our children, our family; what tools do we have to fight back? We're still searching."
Toxic political culture
Labour MP Ingrid Leary says that there's a global trend of politicians, especially women, being increasingly exposed to harm, both online and in person.
"We've had women MPs in Sri Lanka, where there have been attempts to set them on fire, we've had a woman MP in the UK shot. Recently, we had Shane Jones and his wife accosted at the airport.
"We are seeing the spillover and the normalisation of hate speech-type behaviours coming into the physical space. So all the evidence and trends would suggest that women MPs in particular are less safe than they were years ago."
So where has this new-found animosity towards lawmakers come from?
National's Greg Fleming mused that perhaps the uniquely adversarial environment at Parliament is partly to blame.
"We are, as political leaders, culture makers arguably, first and foremost. I think sometimes we have almost more effect at making culture than we do at making legislation. And I think we could do a much better job of focusing on playing the ball, not the man, because we do end up legitimising it."
Leary agreed, "I think all of us have a role to play in terms of managing our own value system and how we conduct ourselves online. …Some of the behaviours could be seen to contribute to the vitriol that is being hurled at politicians, because people don't necessarily see that some of this is theatre and is not real life."
Fleming said that this political 'theatre', increasingly referred to as toxic, acts as a deterrent to attracting the best and brightest to pursue a career in politics.
The ambulance at the bottom of the cliff
Chief executive of the Parliamentary Service Rafael Gonzalez-Montero appearing before a select committee. Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
Responsibility for the safety of MPs lies with the Parliamentary Service, one of the two agencies tasked with running Parliament. Chief executive Rafael Gonzalez-Montero says during his time in the role, there has been "a lot more volatility in the threat landscape, both online and in the physical world".
Currently, the Parliamentary Service liaise with the police when an MP is threatened, but Gonzalez-Montero says "it's very difficult to do anything in advance, so unfortunately we are the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff".
Bolstering the safety of MPs is something the Parliamentary Service have been working on this Parliamentary term, including providing a risk assessment service for MPs attending events in the community.
"We are always looking at ways to keep our members safe - and especially the staff that work in the electorate and community offices safe. So we've been looking around what happens all over the world, in other jurisdictions, to see what we can adopt here. We are looking at ways to help prevent even more the bullying and harassment behaviour that they are subject to online."
Gonzalez-Montero says there is a review of Parliament's wider security system on the horizon, which will include both physical and cybersecurity, to identify blind spots and potential improvements.
* RNZ's The House, with insights into Parliament, legislation and issues, is made with funding from Parliament's Office of the Clerk.
