Councillors face increasing wave of online abuse

Ashburton Deputy Mayor Liz McMillan has seen a rise in abuse directed at councillors, particularly online. It’s a trend echoed by recent data showing that more than half of New Zealand’s elected members are experiencing increasing abuse. Local Democracy reporter Jonathan Leask investigates the behaviour that is increasingly threatening democracy.

Liz McMillan looks at a social media post suggesting councillors should be thrown into a wood chipper.

It is one of many screenshots of offensive comments the deputy mayor of Ashburton has on her phone, showing how the insults aimed at elected members have changed over the years.

“It’s just not right.

“We are just people doing our job.”

Recent polling by Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) shows that abuse targeting councils is increasing and is also echoed in Ashburton.

While the abuse among Ashburton councillors appears to be mainly online, extreme incidents have also occurred elsewhere to date.

Former Nelson Mayor Rachel Reese came home in February to find an “angry stranger” standing in her house with a nail gun.

Susan Freeman-Greene, chief executive of LGNZ, described the event as “horrific”.

“Unfortunately, this won’t come as a big surprise to those in local government,” she said.

Fifty-three percent of elected members surveyed said they encountered more abuse than a year ago.

In addition, 65% of elected members reported experiencing abuse online, 39% experienced it at community events and 33% experienced it during everyday activities such as shopping or picking up children from school.

“This is a growing trend that affects everyone who is elected in our democracy,” Reese said.

Online abuse is increasing in scale and tone

McMillan was first elected to the council in 2016, after serving on the Methven Community Board for nine years.

She has been shouted at and confronted in public a few times, and even received an abusive phone call before, but the online abuse is increasing – in volume and tone.

“And it’s a different kind of punishment. The online stuff has really changed in the last few years.

“When I started out people were saying things about the ‘bloody council’ and then a few weeks ago I read a proposal suggesting we all go to the chopper.

“My kids are on social media now and don’t need to see those kinds of comments anymore.”

McMillan said it used to be general negative criticism, but now it feels more targeted and insulting.

She does not accept the line of thinking of people who say that it is part of being on a council.

There is a big difference between people who express their opinions and provide constructive criticism and people who are insulting or threatening.

She can understand the frustration of the community. She lives in Methven, which has been plagued by persistent boil water notices every time it rains in recent years.

It meant we had to stay home to shelter from the storm of words instead of the rain.

“I was too scared to go out. I stayed home for a few days because there was so much going on on social media and I didn’t want to show my face.”

The opening of Methven’s new water treatment plant last year ended the boil-water advisories, but the negative online reaction, like a virus infecting a new host, prompted the next topic to be discussed.

McMillan is an active user of social media and enjoys sharing information widely.

Due to the increasing amount of negative comments, she has turned off notifications.

“I’m still active there, gathering information and responding to posts, but I don’t respond to posts or comments as often as I used to.”

Social media allows people to comment on something instantly, wherever they are, rather than having to approach a councillor on the street and give their opinion face-to-face, she said.

“Come up with an alternative idea or another solution, don’t say you’re going to throw us in a chopper.

“It doesn’t scare you off, but it does make you question why you’re doing it. It’s hard to be told all the time that you’re doing a bad job and that you’re useless.

“If I don’t do it, someone else will and they’ll still get the same feedback.

“It doesn’t matter who it is and sometimes, and I hate to say it, I think as a woman you get your ears blown off because people think they can treat you like that or because you don’t understand certain things. But I’ve been doing this for a long time.”

“We don’t deserve the slander”

Although McMillan has been an elected member of both the community board and the city council for 17 years, there are three council members at the table who are new to the job and are facing the harsh realities of public office and public perception.

One of them is Phill Hooper, who recently wrote an op-ed aimed at the keyboard warriors “out of frustration”.

After councillors had spent many hours finalising the long-term plan, comments from some that the council had already made its decisions and ignored the community proved to be the tipping point for him.

“The people at the council table are citizens with a heart for the community. They make decisions with the best interest of the community in mind.

“We won’t please everyone with every decision, but we don’t deserve to be vilified for making difficult decisions. And certainly not when people don’t take the time to understand the reasons behind them.”

Criticism is part of the job of ‘serving the community, and we are accountable to them’.

Hooper said any decision would be met with opposition and councillors welcome constructive criticism, but not abuse.

The comments that struck him concerned the council’s decision to sell or demolish Balmoral Hall within two years.

“People wrote that the council should be demolished and ‘you bring the sledgehammers and I’ll bring the crowbars and shovels’.

“They have a right to disagree and be frustrated, and it’s fair to express that, but comments like this cross the line, even if they think it’s a joke.”

At the start of the term, Hooper began sharing his experiences as a new councillor on social media, hoping to give people more insight into the inner workings of the council and to engage the public.

The negative reactions soon put an end to that.

“Eventually I got so bored with the whole social media thing that I just quit.

“If there is constant negative feedback and no constructive feedback, you avoid it.”

He is now a more passive user of social media, monitoring the posts to gauge sentiment within the community. However, after a few less than savoury discussions, he stopped responding to the posts and turned off his notifications because “it’s just always so negative”.

He believes that no matter who is at the council table, the negative comments will continue and that could deter potential candidates ahead of next year’s elections.

Hooper also stuck to his words in his op-ed, challenging social media commentators to fill out their nomination forms next year.

Thirteen people have left municipal buildings during this period

According to Hamish Riach, chief executive of Ashburton District Council, the content and frequency of behavioural incidents in New Zealand councils “definitely appear to be increasing”.

The council does not have statistics on abuse faced by its elected members, but Riach suspects Ashburton’s situation, particularly with regard to online abuse, is consistent with LGNZ polling.

Not only elected members are affected, council employees are also increasingly confronted with insulting and threatening behaviour.

“Incidents involving abuse by personnel occur both within our facilities and in the field. Some positions are at greater risk due to the duties of their job.”

The move to the new library and town hall brought new challenges, he said.

“The wider range of activities in the new library, Te Kete Tuhinga, has led to an increase in visitor numbers and a broader target group.

“This is a very positive outcome. We have seen a wide range of community members using the facility, which we didn’t see much of in the old library.

“However, there have been some incidents in library and municipal services where the behavior of individuals did not meet our expectations.”

Municipal staff are trained to deal safely with aggressive customers.

“We do it more than in the past. It remains a focus.”

During the current council period, which started in November 2022, 13 people entered municipal buildings, Riach said.

There have been incidents where police had to intervene, he said.

Most of the insults against the council take place via social media.

“We are aware that some municipalities have disabled the ability to comment on their social media posts, but we are not currently considering this.

“We want to implement clearer community standards for our social media accounts so we can create a space that encourages constructive conversations.”

Riach couldn’t recall a single post in recent years where comments had to be disabled altogether.

“In an average week, we only need to hide or delete a relatively small number of comments, perhaps less than five.

“Most often this is the result of offensive or insulting language, links to misinformation, or spam.

“If the abuse is pointless, contains violent threats, or continues for a long time, the user will be blocked.”

Local Democracy Reporting is a local journalism organisation co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air