Just hours after Helen Haines was struck by a Toyota LandCruiser in an alleged deliberate act, Tanya Plibersek was interviewed about her experience with threats:

“There’s always been threats. Years ago, I had someone slip a note under my front door at home – no stamp on it or anything, they’d obviously turned up in person – saying they hope my children die of painful cancers. I’ve had, I mean, I couldn’t even count the number of death threats, rape threats that I’ve had over the years, including ones that have ended up in court.”

The thing that’s changed most is the industrial scale of that abuse now. And there’s always been abuse, but I am shocked by the tenor of it.

This week I posted something about Jacqui Lambie, saying that I thought that the cartoon mocking her vaginal prolapse was in extremely poor taste. And 24 hours after I posted that, after this attack on Haines, someone wrote under that post defending Lambie that “she deserves to meet a LandCruiser”. Now, I don’t know what kind of person does that.”

Liberal MP Andrew Hastie, who has been public about the abuse he has received from One Nation supporters, stemming from his court testimony against an alleged war criminal, was asked the same question:

“In my own case, I didn’t seek any security upgrades, the Minister for Home Affairs approached me about that and said that I had been identified and it was over the last six months, particularly, that I’ve come under sustained abuse online. I don’t stay online, I hand that off to my staff – it’s better for my mental health, frankly. But it is an issue and my........

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