Threats and abuse against federal MPs have left staff facing burnout, office closures and private fundraising for extra advisers, as independent and minor-party politicians warn that they cannot safely manage the volume of hostile messages being sent to their workplaces.
Some offices have switched off their telephone lines, instructed staff not to open constituent emails and sent employees home to recover. The warnings come as politicians remain on alert following the attack on independent MP Helen Haines on Monday.
Australian Federal Police commissioner Krissy Barrett said in the aftermath that the force was charging one person a week with threatening politicians.
Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi said her office had sometimes been forced to stop answering calls because of the abuse being received.
“There have been times that I have had to tell staff to not answer the phones because all we are getting is calls of hate and abuse,” she said.
Faruqi said the emotional impact of the messages was interfering with her office’s ability to help constituents. Staff receive support and counselling through the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service, but the senator said emails, social media posts and telephone calls continued to hinder their work.
Faruqi and independent senator Fatima Payman both described incidents this week in which images of human faeces were sent to their email inboxes, distressing staff responsible for sorting legitimate correspondence.
Payman said her office missed an email from the AFP about the conviction of a Queensland man who had targeted her with menacing voicemails, emails and social media messages. The staff member responsible for the correspondence was taking a mental health day after exposure to what Payman described as sustained abuse.
“My staff are on the verge of breakdown and there is no practical way of sharing the burden without shutting the office entirely because, Labor, the party for workers doesn’t give a s–t about safety and wellbeing of the workers in my office,” Payman said.
Staffing dispute intensifies pressure on crossbench offices
Payman, who left the Labor Party to sit as an independent in the previous term, was not given the additional personal staffing allocation available to some other senators. She has the equal lowest staffing allocation among federal parliamentary crossbenchers and has repeatedly sought more advisers.
Federal legislation gives each MP five electorate officers, while the allocation of additional, highly paid personal staff is at the prime minister’s discretion. Anthony Albanese has faced criticism over the arrangements after crossbench staffing was reduced following the 2022 election and opposition staffing was cut after the 2025 election.
On the Senate crossbench, Jacqui Lambie has three additional advisers, David Pocock and Lidia Thorpe have two each, and United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet has one. Payman and One Nation senator Tyron Whitten are the only senators with no additional staff.
Independent MP Nicolette Boele has also had requests for more staff rejected. The teal MP for Bradfield has one additional staff member, compared with two for each of the other five teal independents, with no reason given for the difference.
Boele said her office had sought more staff to protect employees and support communities, including Jewish and Chinese-Australian residents whom she said were being targeted. A further request after the Bondi attack last December was also refused.
She has privately funded a social media staff member to monitor online threats, saying the existing arrangement was not fair, safe or sustainable for her office or the community it represents.
Independent senator David Pocock and teal MP Sophie Scamps have likewise used private fundraising to employ staff.
Scamps said young women in her office were often responsible for filtering threats and harassment, while trying to shield her from abuse fuelled by misinformation. One member of her team recently stepped back after becoming burnt out by the volume of hostile material.
“The aggression, the toxicity, it takes its toll, she’s now left. She was a beloved member of the team, but there’s only so much you can take,” Scamps said.
