As she walks away from protesters railing against pandemic laws on the steps of the Victorian parliament, Catherine Cumming, an independent MP, starts singing Depeche Mode.
“People are people, so why should it be,” she sings to the music pumping from a nearby speaker, “that you and I should get along so awfully.”
It is a fitting song for an awful week in Victorian politics, with an MP’s daughter allegedly attacked, prop gallows brought to Spring Street, and death threats were levelled at multiple MPs, including the premier, Daniel Andrews.
After this week, those opposing the government’s pandemic response are no longer viewed as a wacky bunch of conspiracy theorists who spend too much time on social media; there are real concerns one of the state’s 128 MPs could be seriously harmed.
The viciousness, threatening behaviour, and coordination of seemingly disparate groups has been building for 18 months, and has left some MPs deeply troubled. What if the same trajectory continues for another year, until the election on 26 November 2022?
Cumming, who has spent more time than perhaps any other MP with the protesters, does not believe the group outside parliament is motivated by or condones violence.
Cumming says she is opposed to vaccine mandates. “I will not support any piece of legislation that’s going to give this government any more power to continue on having this separated society,” she told Melbourne radio station 3AW on Friday.
Those who are seemingly threatening to hang politicians – while being surrounded by others who simply feel let down by the government – do not represent the views of most people protesting, she says.
“Anyone who wishes to harm a member of parliament or their family or makes threats to do so is wrong,” Cumming says.
“It is not what we’re about here in Victoria, it’s not what Melburnians do. We’re kind, compassionate people, and no one should be threatened with violence, or live in fear, or be scared.”
But many of Cumming’s colleagues are scared. On Thursday night, the daughter of fellow crossbench upper house MP, the Animal Justice Party’s Andy Meddick, says she was chased down and attacked while spray painting over an anti-vaccination poster in Melbourne.
Meddick initially said he believed his daughter was attacked because of his support for the government’s pandemic laws.
“Like many others I’ve been desperately worried about the comments, threats and intimidation that have been levelled at me and my family, as well as staff and of course my colleagues,” he said in a statement on Friday.
“And now, my worst fears have turned into reality…I have reason to believe that this could be linked to my role as an MP and the positions I have take on the pandemic response.
“I…ask that people understand and respect the fact that comments, insults, intimidation and incitement can all have very real and absolutely devastating consequences.”
Meddick later clarified on ABC radio that it was not clear if the man had identified her as his daughter.
Even before the allegedly assaulted, Meddick had felt like a man under siege.
Like all crossbenchers in the upper house, he has been barraged by a coordinated campaign of correspondence since mid-2020, urging him not to work with the Andrews government to pass legislation related to the pandemic.
The omnibus bill started the torrent of abuse, it became worse during state of emergency extensions, and has reached its most toxic since the pandemic-specific laws were raised, according to a spokesperson for Meddick.
Meddick’s spokesperson says the volume of threats had become so great they had turned off his office phone, removed his office postal address online, and were considering not reopening his electorate office to the public (it is currently closed while being relocated, but not because of the protests).
Before the postal address was removed, Meddick received mail that included a used condom and a postcard threatening his family with kidnapping.
Some threats are specific; Meddick is warned, for example, that he will never be able to safely walk his dog again on the beach in the coastal town of Torquay, near his home.
His staff have also been threatened on social media, meaning they now remove their identification when leaving parliament, and have been escorted or driven out of the complex this week to avoid protesters.
Meddick had already installed security cameras at his home, but since protesters arrived at the property last week he now has guards permanently stationed there. He fears an MP could be killed, as has occurred in the UK.
“We [are] concerned about moving into an election year and getting our MP out in the public and community to do his job,” his spokesperson says, only hours before the assault,” his spokesperson says.
“We won’t just be considering security or protection for staff for the coming weeks – it will be long-term.”
A fellow crossbench upper house MP, the Reason party’s Fiona Patten, was evacuated from her electorate office earlier this month while police cleared a suspicious package containing a threatening letter and white powder.
In the past month, Patten, Meddick, and the Greens MP Samantha Ratnam have received the bulk of threats, many of them personal; Patten was targeted for her advocacy for sex workers, Meddick for his transgender children, and Ratnam for her race.
This is the iceberg below the tip. For every public threat, such as Andrews cancelling a press conference because of safety fears, or a man waving a crossbow outside parliament, or health officials Brett Sutton and Jeroen Weimar being harassed by protesters, there are dozens of private ones.
On Thursday, the Age reported that two men with alleged links to the far right, one of whom is accused of making threats about Andrews, had been charged by counter-terrorism officials. While Victorian Liberal MPs were seen at the protests earlier in the week, opposition leader Matthew Guy made clear later that day that he no longer wanted them to attend.
While condemning any form of violence, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, was accused of “double-speak” and making empathic remarks about the protesters that were similar to those made by former US president Donald Trump about Charlottesville.
Meddick previously received a few hundred emails about bills that could be considered controversial, his spokesperson says, but his office received about 35,000 emails on the pandemic legislation, many of which seemed automated, and very few of which were not threatening or vitriolic, making it difficult for staff to respond to genuine correspondence.
Ratnam has received about 75,000 emails relating to pandemic laws. She fears the growing discontent with institutions and embrace of conspiratorial ideas could lead to a far-right candidate being elected into parliament – particularly given the state uses a group ticket voting system, the only state in the country to do so, meaning it is possible for someone with less than 1% of the vote to be elected.
Lydia Khalil, an expert in extremism and research fellow at the Lowy Institute and Deakin University, says that while most at the protest do not condone violence or are extremists, the failure to condemn threats to politicians could erode democracy.
The cross-section of people drawn to the protests means that people who firmly believe in conspiracy theories were protesting alongside those who have merely lost faith in the government but do not believe “hidden nefarious forces were driving events”.
“[Conspiracy theorists] genuinely believe these elected officials and public health officials are doing harm to the community.
“When you believe you’re acting against evil, it almost becomes as if the ends justifies the means, and what would normally be considered extreme action is not.”
The view of Andrews as a dictator – reinforced repeatedly in conservative media and by opposition MPs – further erodes democracy.
“When you’re calling him a dictator, it serves to delegitimise him as an elected official, and when someone is delegitimised, it opens up the opportunity for people to act outside the law.”
On Thursday, the protesters were almost sedate outside parliament, where the Andrews bill hit a fresh hurdle. The only obvious threat, “Kill Dan Andrews”, was written in green chalk on a park bench a few hundred metres away.
One woman stands alone in the crowd, clutching a placard made from laminated paper that used to adorn her coffee shop. On Monday, she travelled three hours from her home in regional Victoria to protest, and has been here since, spending the nights sleeping on the ground outside parliament.
Last month, she closed the shop she owns because government regulations mean they must refuse entry to unvaccinated customers.
She is anxious and upset and has much to lose – she hasn’t decided if she should pay rent for next month, which is due on 1 December, or close the doors permanently. But she says she isn’t interested in violence and hasn’t witnessed any since joining the protest.
“I don’t think anyone here has any intent to do anything violent,” she says.
“Otherwise we wouldn’t be standing here on these steps protesting peacefully. We’d be burning things down.”
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