Speaker 1: Hilda.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. There's no
Speaker 2: doubt about it. Being a parliamentarian is a public facing,
Speaker 2: high stress, demanding job. Your exposed, scrutinized, and your decisions
Speaker 2: affect the entire country for better or worse. But do
Speaker 2: the high stakes constitute the abuse they face some on
Speaker 2: a daily basis. Recently we've seen Minister Shane Jones and
Speaker 2: his wife Dot accosted at an airport, increased security for
Speaker 2: Mayors Wayne Brown and Tanya tap Cell, and death threats
Speaker 2: aimed at Green MP Benjamin Doyle. But those are all
Speaker 2: just stories from the last month. University of Otago research
Speaker 2: out today shows female MPs are being assaulted with weapons,
Speaker 2: threatened with rape and subjected to deaths and it's become
Speaker 2: commonplace today on the Front Page, Senior author and Professor
Speaker 2: Susanna Everyparma is with us to talk about whether it's
Speaker 2: high time to better protect our elected officials. Susanna tell
Speaker 2: me about this research. How many MPs were spoken to, So.
Speaker 3: We spoke to eleven women and just for context, this
Speaker 3: research was a follow up from our survey in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two when we recruited both male and female MPs,
Speaker 3: and we found that almost all forms of abuse against
Speaker 3: MPs had increased, but the nature of abuse directed at
Speaker 3: women MPs seemed substantively.
Speaker 2: Different, right, And what kinds of experiences did they describe?
Speaker 3: So they talked about experiencing much more personal forms of abuse.
Speaker 3: So they were at significantly higher risks of certain types
Speaker 3: of social media harassment, including gendered abuse, actualized comments, but
Speaker 3: also really nasty stuff like rape threats and possibly worst
Speaker 3: of all, threats towards family members like their children. So,
Speaker 3: just to give you some stats, women were twice as
Speaker 3: likely to receive death threats as male MPs and almost
Speaker 3: six times as likely to have their family threatened. So
Speaker 3: in this research that we did, we did in depth
Speaker 3: interviews with women MPs across the political spectrum, asking them
Speaker 3: about these experiences and.
Speaker 2: What did you find in that respect, because you say,
Speaker 2: across the political spectrum, it doesn't matter what color you are,
Speaker 2: basically as to what kind of threats you get.
Speaker 3: It doesn't know. So we found that harassment occurred whether
Speaker 3: you were in a right leaning or a left leaning party,
Speaker 3: but it did appear that it was worse, you know,
Speaker 3: for younger women and for non white women as well.
Speaker 4: I have had to take things a lot less personally
Speaker 4: than when I started out. I used to read every
Speaker 4: comment and take it to heart. And you have to
Speaker 4: rise above a lot of that. You have to take
Speaker 4: honest criticism from where, from the places that matter to you,
Speaker 4: from the people who put you into power in the
Speaker 4: first place, and that ability to endure those attacks requires
Speaker 4: you to stay grounded. That might be the bush, that
Speaker 4: might be getting enough sleep, that might be cuddles with
Speaker 4: a look upon it, whatever it is. I think we
Speaker 4: can all benefit from balancing the stress of the job
Speaker 4: a bit better.
Speaker 2: One MP's comment stood out to me. They said, it's relentless,
Speaker 2: there's not a break from it. There's not a single
Speaker 2: post that I've posted that doesn't have misogynistic comments or
Speaker 2: racist comments on it. And then you add to that
Speaker 2: death threats. No one, No one prepares you for that.
Speaker 2: Should parliamentarians be more prepared for these kinds of situations?
Speaker 2: Are they given any training or guidance at all?
Speaker 3: That was one of the things that the women said
Speaker 3: is that they wished at the beginning, when they were started,
Speaker 3: that they had have had more orientation and cyber safety training.
Speaker 3: And one example that one woman said that initially she
Speaker 3: started getting this really nasty stuff and people had told her,
Speaker 3: you know, ignore it, delete it, so she deleted and blocked.
Speaker 3: But then when it got to the point that she
Speaker 3: did not feel safe and needed to get police involvement,
Speaker 3: she hadn't kept any of the evidence. So women were saying, yes,
Speaker 3: that they wished that they had been better I guess
Speaker 3: orientated and trained when they got into their roles.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned the previous survey, and I'll just radle
Speaker 2: off a few statistics from that in that ninety eight
Speaker 2: percent of the fifty four MP's surveyed reported experiencing harassment,
Speaker 2: forty percent said that they were threatened with physical violence,
Speaker 2: fourteen percents with sexual violence, and nineteen percent told the
Speaker 2: researchers threats were made against family members.
Speaker 3: Is it getting worse, Yes, it's getting worse. So there's
Speaker 3: no doubt that there has been a change. And we
Speaker 3: were able to compare our twenty twenty two findings with
Speaker 3: similar research that we did in twenty fourteen, and the
Speaker 3: volume and severity and general nastiness has increased, and people
Speaker 3: felt that the rest had significantly increased to them as well,
Speaker 3: and this went beyond MPs. So in the twenty fourteen
Speaker 3: study there were about twenty eight percent of staff or
Speaker 3: family members who were reported to feel afraid. This had
Speaker 3: increased up to eighty percent in twenty twenty two. So
Speaker 3: it was impacting not just on parliamentarians but on those
Speaker 3: around them, and that concern them a great deal, and
Speaker 3: people really worried about the safety of their staff, you know,
Speaker 3: and their kids and other family members.
Speaker 5: Having been out overseas and some of you have come
Speaker 5: with me, you'll see huge closeting and protection of MPs,
Speaker 5: ministers and Prime ministers and presidents and as a result,
Speaker 5: they are not accessible and not available to the public,
Speaker 5: and as I move around it's quite obvious they're not
Speaker 5: used to seeing prime ministers or mp As a result,
Speaker 5: we want to continue to keep our New Zealand way
Speaker 5: of there, which is that actually I do want to
Speaker 5: go to the do a Leap of concert on Friday,
Speaker 5: and I want to know that I can actually do
Speaker 5: that as a private citizen, but also engage with people
Speaker 5: along the way who are always pretty generous with me
Speaker 5: and pretty good to me. You know, that's important. I
Speaker 5: think to be able to have the availability and accessibility
Speaker 5: that we have with our politicians, which is unique, I
Speaker 5: just put it to you compared to what I see
Speaker 5: in other countries. Equally, we do have some really serious
Speaker 5: threats and I don't talk about in the impersonal That's
Speaker 5: a position I've had from the beginning, and we're trying
Speaker 5: to find that balance always of making sure we're protected
Speaker 5: but equally we're accessible. And I think you know that's incumbent.
Speaker 5: So when we see an event like we saw at
Speaker 5: the Eukland airports, you know it's utterly unacceptable and obviously
Speaker 5: it's now the full police.
Speaker 2: Well just recently, Cabinet Minister Shane Jones's wife Dot was
Speaker 2: allegedly grabbed by a man at Altland Airport who had
Speaker 2: shouted angry slurs at Jones. She spoke to The Herald
Speaker 2: to highlight the risk MP's face, but also as a
Speaker 2: warning to other MP's spouses and families. So that's a
Speaker 2: real concern here, isn't it When it branches out to
Speaker 2: family members and those surrounding the MPs.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and it can really affect how people live their
Speaker 3: lives as well. So our participants talked about this harassment,
Speaker 3: changing what they did, where they went, how they got there,
Speaker 3: and even how safe it felt in their own home.
Speaker 1: Has there been a shift from I guess i'll call
Speaker 1: it online world versus it being taken into the real world.
Speaker 3: I think so. So there's been a lot written about
Speaker 3: the online disinhibition effect, so you know that refers to
Speaker 3: the keyboard warriors who communicate in much more aggressive ways
Speaker 3: online than they would in person. But now we do
Speaker 3: seem to be getting a bit of what I would
Speaker 3: call the online amplification effect. And this is when people's
Speaker 3: views get reinforced and encouraged in online forums and then
Speaker 3: spills over to the way that they behave in real life.
Speaker 3: So MP's talked about a greater chance that angry people
Speaker 3: would come up and accost them at the supermarket, in
Speaker 3: the street, or even at the airport at seven thirty
Speaker 3: in the morning. Is in the case of Shane Jones
Speaker 3: and his wife.
Speaker 2: And some MPs I believe mentioned that they have actually
Speaker 2: been assaulted.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's not just how much you're hurt at the time,
Speaker 3: but the fear that you feel that you could be
Speaker 3: seriously hurt or even kurled. And so MPs did talk
Speaker 3: about being scared, being afraid from their own safety, the
Speaker 3: safety of others, and also experiencing post traumatic symptoms in
Speaker 3: relation to some of these events.
Speaker 2: A lot of this has come from social media, and
Speaker 2: that's what Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown and Rotarua Mayor Tanya
Speaker 2: tap Cell have experienced as well. Does social media just
Speaker 2: make it easier to casually tell a politician you want
Speaker 2: them to die?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: I think so, and that anonymity behind that as well
Speaker 3: makes it easier for people to say things that they
Speaker 3: may not actually mean.
Speaker 2: We know when Jasindra Adun resigned, while she didn't explicitly
Speaker 2: say it was because of the vitriol she faced. Chris
Speaker 2: Hopkins came in saying he would protect his family from
Speaker 2: what he called abhorrent abuse that his predecessor received in office.
Speaker 2: Threats against her ramped up by the time she left.
Speaker 2: The bee Hive data showed targets against her are tripled
Speaker 2: over three years, with at least eight threats entered into
Speaker 2: the legal system, including a man who vowed to shoot
Speaker 2: her for treason. Was she protected enough and has anything
Speaker 2: changed since then?
Speaker 3: One thing that our participants mentioned is that when Jasinda
Speaker 3: Adern resigned that the threats against them and the vitriol
Speaker 3: targeted at them reduced. And this was a comment that
Speaker 3: many said made that it was that when women rose
Speaker 3: to a certain level of power that seemed to have
Speaker 3: negative consequences on other women. So they also talked about
Speaker 3: women losing certain portfolios because their gender became too much
Speaker 3: of a distraction.
Speaker 2: And of course there's also that larger conversation at play
Speaker 2: here as well. Female MPs are faced with gender based harassment,
Speaker 2: then it challenges representation in politics as well.
Speaker 3: Hey, yeah, that's what we describe as a threat to democracy.
Speaker 3: So that based on this, people especially women, maybe less
Speaker 3: likely to go into politics. They might be less able
Speaker 3: to engage in the political work, so not feeling safe
Speaker 3: to go out campaigning or be you know, a public
Speaker 3: figure available to their constituents. And it could also exacerbate
Speaker 3: stress and burnout, leading to women prematurely leaving parliament as well.
Speaker 3: So it's a problem not just for the MPs that
Speaker 3: are facing that, but for democracy. And this is something
Speaker 3: that has also been seen in overseas jurisdiction as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was about to say, I see you've referred
Speaker 1: to the UK politician Joe Cox.
Speaker 2: She was murdered in twenty sixteen by white supremacist in
Speaker 2: a politically motivated attack.
Speaker 1: What was recommended after that.
Speaker 3: Yes, So the Joe Cox Foundation set up a number
Speaker 3: of recommendations after that, which I think that we can
Speaker 3: learn from as well. So often when these threats come in,
Speaker 3: they're responded to on an individual basis, with the onus
Speaker 3: on the person who's threatened the NP to take legal
Speaker 3: action against the perpetrator, which is quite a burden for
Speaker 3: them to carry. The Joe Cox Foundation talked about setting
Speaker 3: up a central body that would monitor and coordinated response
Speaker 3: to abuse, and also about developing guidelines on abuse for
Speaker 3: both parliamentarians but also for the police and how they
Speaker 3: responded not just to the actual violence that was perpetrated,
Speaker 3: but to the risk of harm and the psychological consequences
Speaker 3: that that had.
Speaker 6: There's no question unfortunately women in leadership positions, women in politics,
Speaker 6: but women and other leadership positions are the subject of
Speaker 6: far more abuse and vitriol than men doing comparable jobs are.
Speaker 6: And I think we do have a responsibility as men
Speaker 6: to step up and to condemn that and to speak
Speaker 6: out against it. Now, I think there are many men
Speaker 6: who feel a bit uncomfortable about that, and it's not
Speaker 6: because they want to endorse the sentiment, but because they
Speaker 6: don't want to be seen to be undermining the women
Speaker 6: who are the subject of it. But I think we
Speaker 6: do need to have honest conversations about it. It is
Speaker 6: happening and it's not okay and it's not fair.
Speaker 2: What should be done in New Zealand to prevent something
Speaker 2: like that from happening? I mean, if nothing is done
Speaker 2: and the abuse just keeps getting worse and worse, do
Speaker 2: we run the risk of having a Joe Cock situation
Speaker 2: in New Zealand.
Speaker 3: It's a small risk, but it is a risk. Some
Speaker 3: of the things that we would recommend is more orientation
Speaker 3: and cyber safety training for politicians at induction, increased resources
Speaker 3: for them for home and office security, support for the staff.
Speaker 3: So many women commented that their electorate staff were those
Speaker 3: who were in the frontline of the abuse. They're often
Speaker 3: at the coal face, so support for them and for
Speaker 3: family members of politicians as well. And measures around enhance
Speaker 3: social media screening and filtering of harmful content, and also
Speaker 3: possibly legislation change and a willingness to prosecute people who
Speaker 3: behave in harmful ways online.
Speaker 2: When conducting this research and with the skills and knowledge
Speaker 2: that you have, Susannah, does it shock you the comments
Speaker 2: you see and the stories you're told by these MPs.
Speaker 3: I'm a forensic psychiatrist, so that is a high risk.
Speaker 3: We're seen as a high risk profession in terms of
Speaker 3: coming in for abuse. I expected from my previous research
Speaker 3: that in Peace would be subjected to nasty stuff, but yes,
Speaker 3: I was shocked by the relentless and pervasive nature on
Speaker 3: it and also the effects that it was having on
Speaker 3: many in peace families as well.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Susannah, You're welcome. That's it for this.
Speaker 2: Episode of the Front Page. You can read more about
Speaker 2: today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzidherld dot co
Speaker 2: dot nz. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills
Speaker 2: and Richard Martin, who is also our sound engineer.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look
Speaker 2: behind the headlines.