Hilda.
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. There's no doubt about it. Being a parliamentarian is a public facing, high stress, demanding job. Your exposed, scrutinized, and your decisions affect the entire country for better or worse. But do the high stakes constitute the abuse they face some on
a daily basis. Recently we've seen Minister Shane Jones and his wife Dot accosted at an airport, increased security for Mayors Wayne Brown and Tanya tap Cell, and death threats aimed at Green MP Benjamin Doyle. But those are all
just stories from the last month. University of Otago research out today shows female MPs are being assaulted with weapons, threatened with rape and subjected to deaths and it's become commonplace today on the Front Page, Senior author and Professor Susanna Everyparma is with us to talk about whether it's high time to better protect our elected officials. Susanna tell me about this research. How many MPs were spoken to, So.
We spoke to eleven women and just for context, this research was a follow up from our survey in twenty twenty two when we recruited both male and female MPs, and we found that almost all forms of abuse against MPs had increased, but the nature of abuse directed at women MPs seemed substantively.
Different, right, And what kinds of experiences did they describe?
So they talked about experiencing much more personal forms of abuse. So they were at significantly higher risks of certain types of social media harassment, including gendered abuse, actualized comments, but also really nasty stuff like rape threats and possibly worst of all, threats towards family members like their children. So, just to give you some stats, women were twice as likely to receive death threats as male MPs and almost
six times as likely to have their family threatened. So in this research that we did, we did in depth interviews with women MPs across the political spectrum, asking them about these experiences and.
What did you find in that respect, because you say, across the political spectrum, it doesn't matter what color you are, basically as to what kind of threats you get.
It doesn't know. So we found that harassment occurred whether you were in a right leaning or a left leaning party, but it did appear that it was worse, you know, for younger women and for non white women as well.
I have had to take things a lot less personally than when I started out. I used to read every comment and take it to heart. And you have to rise above a lot of that. You have to take honest criticism from where, from the places that matter to you, from the people who put you into power in the first place, and that ability to endure those attacks requires you to stay grounded. That might be the bush, that might be getting enough sleep, that might be cuddles with
a look upon it, whatever it is. I think we can all benefit from balancing the stress of the job a bit better.
One MP's comment stood out to me. They said, it's relentless, there's not a break from it. There's not a single post that I've posted that doesn't have misogynistic comments or racist comments on it. And then you add to that death threats. No one, No one prepares you for that. Should parliamentarians be more prepared for these kinds of situations? Are they given any training or guidance at all?
That was one of the things that the women said is that they wished at the beginning, when they were started, that they had have had more orientation and cyber safety training. And one example that one woman said that initially she started getting this really nasty stuff and people had told her, you know, ignore it, delete it, so she deleted and blocked. But then when it got to the point that she did not feel safe and needed to get police involvement,
she hadn't kept any of the evidence. So women were saying, yes, that they wished that they had been better I guess orientated and trained when they got into their roles.
And you mentioned the previous survey, and I'll just radle off a few statistics from that in that ninety eight percent of the fifty four MP's surveyed reported experiencing harassment, forty percent said that they were threatened with physical violence, fourteen percents with sexual violence, and nineteen percent told the researchers threats were made against family members.
Is it getting worse, Yes, it's getting worse. So there's no doubt that there has been a change. And we were able to compare our twenty twenty two findings with similar research that we did in twenty fourteen, and the volume and severity and general nastiness has increased, and people felt that the rest had significantly increased to them as well, and this went beyond MPs. So in the twenty fourteen study there were about twenty eight percent of staff or
family members who were reported to feel afraid. This had increased up to eighty percent in twenty twenty two. So it was impacting not just on parliamentarians but on those around them, and that concern them a great deal, and people really worried about the safety of their staff, you know, and their kids and other family members.
Having been out overseas and some of you have come with me, you'll see huge closeting and protection of MPs, ministers and Prime ministers and presidents and as a result, they are not accessible and not available to the public, and as I move around it's quite obvious they're not used to seeing prime ministers or mp As a result, we want to continue to keep our New Zealand way of there, which is that actually I do want to go to the do a Leap of concert on Friday,
and I want to know that I can actually do that as a private citizen, but also engage with people along the way who are always pretty generous with me and pretty good to me. You know, that's important. I think to be able to have the availability and accessibility that we have with our politicians, which is unique, I just put it to you compared to what I see
in other countries. Equally, we do have some really serious threats and I don't talk about in the impersonal That's a position I've had from the beginning, and we're trying to find that balance always of making sure we're protected but equally we're accessible. And I think you know that's incumbent. So when we see an event like we saw at the Eukland airports, you know it's utterly unacceptable and obviously it's now the full police.
Well just recently, Cabinet Minister Shane Jones's wife Dot was allegedly grabbed by a man at Altland Airport who had shouted angry slurs at Jones. She spoke to The Herald to highlight the risk MP's face, but also as a warning to other MP's spouses and families. So that's a real concern here, isn't it When it branches out to family members and those surrounding the MPs.
Exactly, and it can really affect how people live their lives as well. So our participants talked about this harassment, changing what they did, where they went, how they got there, and even how safe it felt in their own home.
Has there been a shift from I guess i'll call it online world versus it being taken into the real world.
I think so. So there's been a lot written about the online disinhibition effect, so you know that refers to the keyboard warriors who communicate in much more aggressive ways online than they would in person. But now we do seem to be getting a bit of what I would call the online amplification effect. And this is when people's views get reinforced and encouraged in online forums and then spills over to the way that they behave in real life.
So MP's talked about a greater chance that angry people would come up and accost them at the supermarket, in the street, or even at the airport at seven thirty in the morning. Is in the case of Shane Jones and his wife.
And some MPs I believe mentioned that they have actually been assaulted.
Yes, it's not just how much you're hurt at the time, but the fear that you feel that you could be seriously hurt or even kurled. And so MPs did talk about being scared, being afraid from their own safety, the safety of others, and also experiencing post traumatic symptoms in relation to some of these events.
A lot of this has come from social media, and that's what Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown and Rotarua Mayor Tanya tap Cell have experienced as well. Does social media just make it easier to casually tell a politician you want them to die?
Yes?
I think so, and that anonymity behind that as well makes it easier for people to say things that they may not actually mean.
We know when Jasindra Adun resigned, while she didn't explicitly say it was because of the vitriol she faced. Chris Hopkins came in saying he would protect his family from what he called abhorrent abuse that his predecessor received in office. Threats against her ramped up by the time she left. The bee Hive data showed targets against her are tripled over three years, with at least eight threats entered into the legal system, including a man who vowed to shoot
her for treason. Was she protected enough and has anything changed since then?
One thing that our participants mentioned is that when Jasinda Adern resigned that the threats against them and the vitriol targeted at them reduced. And this was a comment that many said made that it was that when women rose to a certain level of power that seemed to have negative consequences on other women. So they also talked about women losing certain portfolios because their gender became too much of a distraction.
And of course there's also that larger conversation at play here as well. Female MPs are faced with gender based harassment, then it challenges representation in politics as well.
Hey, yeah, that's what we describe as a threat to democracy. So that based on this, people especially women, maybe less likely to go into politics. They might be less able to engage in the political work, so not feeling safe to go out campaigning or be you know, a public figure available to their constituents. And it could also exacerbate stress and burnout, leading to women prematurely leaving parliament as well. So it's a problem not just for the MPs that
are facing that, but for democracy. And this is something that has also been seen in overseas jurisdiction as well.
Yeah, I was about to say, I see you've referred to the UK politician Joe Cox.
She was murdered in twenty sixteen by white supremacist in a politically motivated attack.
What was recommended after that.
Yes, So the Joe Cox Foundation set up a number of recommendations after that, which I think that we can learn from as well. So often when these threats come in, they're responded to on an individual basis, with the onus on the person who's threatened the NP to take legal action against the perpetrator, which is quite a burden for
them to carry. The Joe Cox Foundation talked about setting up a central body that would monitor and coordinated response to abuse, and also about developing guidelines on abuse for both parliamentarians but also for the police and how they responded not just to the actual violence that was perpetrated, but to the risk of harm and the psychological consequences that that had.
There's no question unfortunately women in leadership positions, women in politics, but women and other leadership positions are the subject of far more abuse and vitriol than men doing comparable jobs are. And I think we do have a responsibility as men to step up and to condemn that and to speak
out against it. Now, I think there are many men who feel a bit uncomfortable about that, and it's not because they want to endorse the sentiment, but because they don't want to be seen to be undermining the women who are the subject of it. But I think we do need to have honest conversations about it. It is happening and it's not okay and it's not fair.
What should be done in New Zealand to prevent something like that from happening? I mean, if nothing is done and the abuse just keeps getting worse and worse, do we run the risk of having a Joe Cock situation in New Zealand.
It's a small risk, but it is a risk. Some of the things that we would recommend is more orientation and cyber safety training for politicians at induction, increased resources for them for home and office security, support for the staff. So many women commented that their electorate staff were those who were in the frontline of the abuse. They're often at the coal face, so support for them and for
family members of politicians as well. And measures around enhance social media screening and filtering of harmful content, and also possibly legislation change and a willingness to prosecute people who behave in harmful ways online.
When conducting this research and with the skills and knowledge that you have, Susannah, does it shock you the comments you see and the stories you're told by these MPs.
I'm a forensic psychiatrist, so that is a high risk. We're seen as a high risk profession in terms of coming in for abuse. I expected from my previous research that in Peace would be subjected to nasty stuff, but yes, I was shocked by the relentless and pervasive nature on it and also the effects that it was having on many in peace families as well.
Thanks for joining us, Susannah, You're welcome. That's it for this.
Episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzidherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also our sound engineer.
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.