Kerre Woodham: Free speech doesn't mean you can threaten people

There's a text here, "talk about a beat up by ZB on politicians and threats. If you raise the possibility and keep flagging potential problems, you may get what you predict. So stupid to highlight this on your news at this time," says Paul. I don't think that's true. I think there are very, very, very few people worldwide, even with all the problems that abound, that would act in the way that this 43 year old Australian has done. Very few. But what people need to understand is that violent words, violent rhetoric can breed violent actions, and it may help temper the kind of madness that you see online. And the attack on the Australian independent MP Helen Haines is absolutely horrific, and it will make the news. It is newsworthy.  

The 43 year old man has been charged with a number of serious offences in relation to the attack, which was brutal and premeditated. Haines was unloading her car outside her electoral office when the man did a U turn and ran into her a number of times with his Land Cruiser, crushing her between the two vehicles. It wasn't a one off, it wasn't a moment of madness, it was several moments of madness. She has lost one leg, doctors are fighting to save the other, and in a cruel irony, it appears the man was a family friend. His father and stepmother have been friends with Haines for more than 20 years.  

She certainly sounds like one of the good guys, one of the very people you want to attract to Parliament. She had a life before entering Parliament, she was a nurse, a mother, an advocate for the rural community, and then once elected she led an anti corruption campaign within Parliament. It was a senseless, cruel attack on a good woman.  

And our MPs must have had a shiver go down their spines because many of them have been on the receiving end of personal attacks and death threats. My own MP, Dan Bidois, had to bring in the police when he received death threats that were deemed credible. Dan is a hardworking MP, a dad of two little ones, he's always at the local community events, does an amazing job for his constituents, but for whatever reason, probably because he had the temerity to stand for National, he received death threats. Speaker of the House Gerry Brownlee says they are well aware of the threats to MPs and even to candidates, and they take it very seriously. 

"Massive increase in threats to members of Parliament, particularly to women members of Parliament. And I think it's also the nature of those threats has changed from, you know, it might have been a bit of personal abuse about how someone presented themselves or other such, right down to now increasingly threats of physical violence as well. We've had to respond, we've set up a unit called the Security Intelligence Research Advisory Service, SIRAS, and they've got a team that will go out and be with MPs, they've deployed quite considerably during this period. But it's also candidates out there, and I think the work we've been able to do with the New Zealand Police, and I've got to take my hat off to them, I think they've done a great job in contacting all candidates and giving them personal numbers to be able to call should they feel threatened. Because, you know, you just don't know, you can't blanket everybody all the time, but you certainly need to have something that makes it very clear that if people are out of line, they're going to get prosecuted or at least deterred." 

And they do need to be prosecuted and deterred because that angry, angry rhetoric, that violent rhetoric can lead to physical assaults. I mean, look at James Shaw, he's one of the more reasonable, hardworking, lovely MPs, whatever you think of his politics, assaulted by a man in the street and needed hospital attention when he was in Parliament. And a lot of people throw off at the fact that Jacinda Ardern lives offshore with her family, well, in large part that's because of the truly horrific threats that were made not just against her, but her daughter, her little girl.  

You can have an opinion, you can have a reckon, you can have a strong opinion, and that's the other thing that concerns me, that people are so wary of the nutters out there that you can't even voice a strong opinion against policy or against decisions made by MPs, which dampens down free speech because people aren't responsible when it comes to the right to free speech. Free speech doesn't mean you can abuse, insult, threaten to kill, threaten to rape, threaten to murder MPs and members of their families. It's a responsibility as well as a right, and you have to use it accordingly.  

Social media's given people license to be real heroes. They say terrible things that they would never say when they were face to face with the individual. A friend of mine who's got quite a high profile on the social medias, that's part of how she makes a living, said, "Whatever happened to the days of talking about people behind their back? I don't need some troll to come on my page and tell me how ugly and revolting and what a loser I am. Tell your mates! I don't need to know about it. Bring back the days of talking about people behind their backs." And she's got a point. Not everybody has to hear your views of how ugly or how stupid or how ignorant or how politically misguided you are.  

I've never done it. I've been annoyed with people before online, people have annoyed me, and I've thought, "Well, I won't read this anymore. I'll make sure that my algorithms don't throw up this kind of content." I don't really feel the need to go on and tell people that they're ugly losers and completely hopeless at what they do and I'll shoot them. No matter how annoyed I've got over the years about political decisions, I have never wished the individuals harm. Ever. Ever. You don't even think it. I really do think that the rhetoric that people feel emboldened to use because they feel they can be anonymous can fuel the kind of completely irrational violence that we saw in Australia yesterday. It's not very far away in terms of geographical distance in Australia, but also in terms of that kind of violence. We need to be careful.