Australia is not equipped to handle the increasing threat of domestic interference as shadowy groups roll out anti-democratic tactics at scale, the head of a federal parliamentary inquiry into last year’s election has warned.
As threats against politicians continue to soar, with a fifth man charged this month for allegedly harassing a parliamentarian, Labor MP Jerome Laxale said his inquiry into the 2025 election had seen “harrowing evidence” of voter intimidation and interference.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has for months urged civility in political debate after December’s Bondi terror attack tore at Australia’s social fabric, but independent senator and former Labor MP Fatima Payman is demanding he do more to stamp out hatred.
In the months since the Bondi massacre, Australia has seen a failed alleged terror attack at a Perth Invasion Day rally, the prime minister evacuated from his home because of a bomb threat, and a WA man arrested for allegedly planning a “mass casualty event” motivated by white supremacist ideology.
Laxale said ensuring Australians could safely participate in democracy was essential for a nation that had mandated voting, after a white nationalist ambushed shadow treasurer Tim Wilson at an event this week.
“[Voters] won’t go [to events] because of fear of being confronted in that way, and that’s a big problem for a democracy like ours,” he said.
The Labor backbencher said it was evident groups were intentionally interfering in the electoral process, and the lack of clear definition for what constitutes domestic interference made it difficult to legislate around.
“Interference is becoming a tactic, and the [Australian Electoral Commission] doesn’t have the powers to deal with that,” he said.
Laxale said the degree of interference in the 2025 election was “chalk and cheese” compared to years past, with the majority of more than 300 inquiry submissions flagging violence and domestic interference.
“This model picked up during the Voice [referendum in 2023], and it was then distributed at scale,” he said.
The committee chair pointed to the Exclusive Brethren swarming polling booths, and the National Socialist Network blasting extremist messaging from loudspeakers at voters in Melbourne.
“According to evidence we’ve received, it left people in tears, afraid to vote. Some people left the polling booth,” Laxale said.
In an unrelated incident, a man fronted an Adelaide court on Friday on 10 counts of sending menacing and offensive emails to South Australian MP Matt Burnell over two years.
Ronald Munro was the fifth man to be charged this month with allegedly sending harassing or menacing messages to an MP.
“I’m not going to admit that I’ve been wrong. You know, I really feel as though I do have the right to talk to my member of parliament,” the 73-year-old told Nine News outside court on Friday.
“I try to suggest things, and nothing ever seems to get done. A couple of times I use the f-word, you know, but I’m just so damn stinking mad… I don’t have any regrets using any words.”
A spokesperson for Burnell would not comment on the case, but told the broadcaster: “Sadly, around the world and here in Australia, we’ve seen increased threats made to public figures. We should be better than this.”
The prime minister has for months urged civility in political debate.
“As I’ve said many times, we need to take the temperature down,” Albanese said on Friday after the alleged terror plot in WA was uncovered. “Political leaders have a particular responsibility not to fan the flames of bigotry.”
But Payman, who saw a man convicted last year after he threatened to kill her, accused the prime minister of double standards and said the words were not enough.
“That’s rich coming from the prime minister when he refers to Grace Tame as being difficult – nobody’s going to listen to you when you make such condescending, misogynistic comments about a woman like that. So what are you doing to lower the temperature, prime minister?” Payman said.
“Hypocrisy and double standards, people are seeing right through it.”
Payman said that as a Muslim woman, she was a lightning rod for vitriol and was getting daily threats – some of which were directed at her five-year-old nephew and even her British short-haired kitten.
Albanese has refused to grant staff to Payman’s office after she quit the Labor Party in 2024 over its stance on the war in Gaza. She said the lack of resources was putting strain on her existing team with the volume of abuse she received.
Payman grilled the AFP in a Senate estimates hearing earlier this month, saying the agency was routinely dismissing abuse as not bad enough to warrant investigation and asking her staff to collect and triage their own threats.
AFP commissioner Krissy Barrett told Payman that protecting MPs was a top priority and senior staff reviewed threats to ensure they were managed and triaged appropriately.
“We also have a fixated threat assessment team, which does look to those behaviours … whether someone’s escalating or ramping up, and whether we need to intervene,” she said.
A report last year revealed that 85 per cent of surveyed parliamentarians and staff reported dealing with constituents who were behaving in a violent, threatening or volatile manner, with half saying it was a monthly occurrence.
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Brittany Busch is a federal politics reporter for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.