{"id":304672,"date":"2025-11-24T02:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T02:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/304672\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T02:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T02:35:09","slug":"it-just-seems-cruel-councillor-shocked-by-comments-after-cycling-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/304672\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It just seems cruel\u2019: Councillor shocked by comments after cycling accident"},"content":{"rendered":"

But she was still surprised by the cruelty of some of the comments she saw after she was hit by a car while cycling in Mt Roskill in June. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were basically one step on from blaming me. It was like I deserved it and that it would be nice if they finished the job or if it happened again, and that\u2019s hard to read.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow could another human being write that to another person? You\u2019re making this comment about someone, an actual person. How could you wish such ill on anybody? To me, it just seems cruel, and I don\u2019t understand it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been doing this a long time, and a lot of it doesn\u2019t bother me, although probably it should. But what bothers me is the idea that my kids or my mother might see it, and that would be upsetting for them, and that\u2019s not okay.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Auckland Council<\/a> surveyed last term\u2019s councillors and local board members, 81% of those who responded said they had been harassed or bullied by members of the public.<\/p>\n

65% had been abused or harassed online, with the majority of those targeted being women.<\/p>\n

Thirty-three out of 170 members responded to the survey done in April, which was released to RNZ last week.<\/p>\n

Fairey said her fellow councillors who are women \u2013 particularly women of colour \u2013 often received more abuse <\/a>than their male counterparts.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor women, there tends to be more appearance-based attacks. It\u2019s not something I\u2019ve had to deal with too much, being of a smaller size and having pale skin. But I\u2019ve seen colleagues and friends be told to shut up because they\u2019re fat or things of that nature.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have several friends who would make great local government elected members who have told me straight that they will not stand because of the fear of abuse. These are staunch women with plenty of useful experience that they could bring to the table, some of them in day jobs or volunteer work where they have stood up to power in the past and they\u2019re not prepared to put themselves up for the election process because of the harassment they know they\u2019ll face, in particular online, and they way that sometimes people\u2019s family members can be targeted as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

She challenged the idea that elected members should have to put up with vicious comments, including from each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have colleagues who, the way they feel about it, is that if it\u2019s too hot, get out of the kitchen. But actually, the kitchen shouldn\u2019t be that hot.<\/p>\n

\u201cPoliticians have a role in bringing down the temperature themselves. Often, the narratives we engage with publicly heat things up, and we need to exhibit the kinds of standards we expect from the community and not make attacks on other people, be they staff, the organisation, or other elected members that are really personal and hurtful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sixty-nine per cent of the 33 people who responded to the survey said they had been targeted by fellow elected members.<\/p>\n

Fairey said that as of last term, the council started using a platform called Done Safe, where members can report comments that cross the line or persistent abuse.<\/p>\n

Councillor Alf Filipaina said he was not active on social media but had received a few odd emails about his support for M\u0101ori wards<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say things like you\u2019re being divisive, you\u2019re disgusting. But who cares, I just ignore them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another councillor, Andy Baker, said he avoided social media because of personal attacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t live my life on social media and at times have taken myself off platforms because I was sick of the comments, just in general, how ridiculous some of them are.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it is an issue, and some of the comments can be so nasty, so personal, they\u2019ll say \u2018you\u2019re just a dickhead\u2019 and use abusive language.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can debate and disagree on issues, but when it becomes personal and sometimes they attack family, it just steps over that line.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baker said that working as a police officer gave him thick skin.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone pulled a knife on me, I got shot at, so these sorts of comments are inane to me. I actually laugh at them. Deleted and blocked them and moved on.\u201d<\/p>\n

He agreed that councillors needed to watch their own behaviour.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not perfect either, in meetings some of my colleagues will climb into staff knowing they can\u2019t respond.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councillor John Watson said the conduct around the council table could be appalling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe council has to look at itself before it even starts to look at the public. It should be encouraging a far higher standard of discourse amongst elected members. People have different points of view, and they\u2019re entitled to say them, but they should be respectful.<\/p>\n

\u201cWalking the talk and leading by example is a good way of ensuring that quite disturbing behaviour being signalled through this survey isn\u2019t normalised.\u201d<\/p>\n

Council spokeswoman Lou-Ann Ballantyne said the level of intimidation and threats was worrying.<\/p>\n

She said the council had taken actions, including de-escalation training for members and promoting the need to log incidents.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe acknowledge there\u2019s more to do, and we\u2019re working through a range of possible tactics to help improve elected member safety and wellbeing as we go forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Local Government [LGNZ] vice-president and Gisborne mayor Rehette Stolz said the problem was nationwide.<\/p>\n

She said they had seen many examples of local and central government politicians being abused, including herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople sometimes talk to you in a way that is inappropriate. They send messages about how useless you are, that your council is a bunch of losers, or to \u2018go back to where you came from\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople put their names forward for local and central government to serve their communities, and everyone has the right to be treated with respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

She hoped recent changes to stalking and harassment legislation would improve safety for councillors across the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cLGNZ have been active in supporting members who are victims of abuse and worked closely to get this legislation across the line. Now it\u2019s gone through the house, we\u2019ll support members to know what this means for them, and how they can use it to make sure they are safe and respected.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But she was still surprised by the cruelty of some of the comments she saw after she was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[28222,9490,64,63,7504,16386,18406,173777,784,173779,1467,7975,8117,157096,173778,85],"class_list":["post-304672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-accident","tag-after","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-by","tag-comments","tag-councillor","tag-cruel","tag-cycling","tag-hopkins","tag-it","tag-jessica","tag-just","tag-seems","tag-shocked","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}