{"id":470245,"date":"2026-02-10T08:53:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T08:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/470245\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T08:53:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T08:53:09","slug":"reprieve-for-man-after-explicit-death-threat-to-pm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/470245\/","title":{"rendered":"Reprieve for man after explicit death threat to PM"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man who issued a slur-laden death threat to the prime minister<\/a> and his wife during a months-long social media<\/a> tirade has been spared jail.Alexander Phillip David Keating, 37, was today convicted in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court<\/a> of using social media platform X<\/a> to menace, harass and offend.He posted 45 menacing messages between February and April last year, many of which called for violence against Muslims<\/a>, queer people or politicians<\/a>.\"DowningKeating was convicted in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court of using X to menace, harass and offend. (Edwina Pickles)<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was one of the targets of the “abhorrent” threats, magistrate Theo Tsavdaridis said.<\/p>\n

Keating posted a death threat directed at the prime minister and his wife, which contained a graphic slur, the court was told.<\/p>\n

The magistrate said the social media posts were a “serious affront” to the values of a civilised society.<\/p>\n

“There is no place for hatred of this calibre in a country such as ours,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The posts advocated sexual violence, killing and physical annihilation on the basis of race, religion<\/a> and the colour of their skin.”Keating had stopped taking medication for his mental health<\/a> issues in the lead-up to writing the posts, Tsavdaridis noted.He was also self-medicating with cannabis<\/a> daily at the time.<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old had become frustrated with government policies and the rise of “wokeness” and “communism” from late 2024, according to the agreed facts.<\/p>\n

He felt he was unable to have an opinion on political issues.<\/p>\n

\"PrimePrime Minister Anthony Albanese was one of the targets of the “abhorrent” threats. (Alex Ellinghausen)<\/p>\n

“One can express political opinions without resorting to calls for murder,” Tsavdaridis said.<\/p>\n

Because Keating only had six followers on X, his lawyer argued there was no evidence anyone had seen the posts to be offended by them.<\/p>\n

But Tsavdaridis said Keating’s account was public, so anyone using the site could theoretically have found the posts.<\/p>\n

The magistrate stressed the need for deterrence of similar racially motivated crimes after the Bondi Beach<\/a> terror attack in December.<\/p>\n

“Any gains we have painstakingly made as a multicultural society over many years can very quickly be cast into oblivion,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The law has always drawn a clear boundary between robust discourse and the incitement of violence.”<\/p>\n

He ordered Keating to serve a two-year community corrections order and undergo constant mental health treatment.<\/p>\n

NEVER MISS A STORY: Get your breaking news and exclusive stories first by following us across all platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who issued a slur-laden death threat to the prime minister and his wife during a months-long…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-470245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470245","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=470245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}