Nearly three violent or menacing threats against federal politicians are being reported to police daily, according to Australian federal police data, with rates almost doubling in two years.<\/p>\n
The soaring danger for elected officials and their staff reached new heights this week when Anthony Albanese was evacuated from The Lodge<\/a> in Canberra over a bomb threat.<\/p>\n The AFP confirmed reports of violent threats, including death threats, against federal politicians have been on the rise, almost doubling from 555 in 2021-22 to 951 reports in 2024-25.<\/p>\n The troubling statistics have coincided with at least 21 charges laid against individuals since October.<\/p>\n Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n The prime minister was evacuated from his official Canberra residence on Tuesday night for three hours as police responded to a bomb threat made against him.<\/p>\n The threat was believed to be made in relation to upcoming performances of the Chinese performance group Shen Yun, linked with the political spiritual movement Falun Dafa \u2013 a group banned in China and strongly outspoken against the Chinese Communist party.<\/p>\n But many of the recent charges for violent threats against politicians point to aggrieved lone actors on social media.<\/p>\n Since taking the reins, the AFP\u2019s new commissioner, Krissy Barrett, has set up National Security Investigations teams tasked with investigating those \u201ccausing high levels of harm to Australia\u2019s social cohesion\u201d.<\/p>\n double quotation markAllegra Spender referred to police a threat to \u2018rhetorically rape\u2019 her in November<\/p>\n Barrett described the police team in December as a \u201cflying squad of hate disrupters who focus on high-harm, high-impact politically motivated violence, communal violence and hate crimes that do not meet the threshold for terrorism investigations but drive fear and division\u201d.<\/p>\n The independent Wentworth MP, Allegra Spender, referred to police a threat to \u201crhetorically rape\u201d her in November. The threat was made in a neo-Nazi channel on Telegram after Spender\u2019s condemnation of a neo-Nazi rally outside New South Wales parliament. A prominent neo-Nazi has since been charged<\/a>.<\/p>\n In December, a 31-year-old Sydney man was charged<\/a> with threatening to kill the communications minister, Anika Wells, and her family in two emails.<\/p>\n Greg William Tait, 43, was charged in January<\/a> for threatening to kill a federal MP believed to be the prime minister in December shortly after the Bondi shooting while a western Sydney man, 55, was charged last week for threatening to kill the federal treasurer, Jim Chalmers.<\/p>\n \u2018We\u2019ve got to stay vigilant\u2019<\/p>\n The Western Australia senator Fatima Payman told Guardian Australia her office had been \u201cpretty much bombarded with hate and death threats almost every day\u201d since she left the Labor party.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s sad that people seem to have lost all sense of shame,\u201d the independent senator said.<\/p>\n In November 2025, 51-year-old Victorian man Sean David Sharman was sentenced to an 18-month community corrections order<\/a> for using a carriage service to make a threat to kill.<\/p>\n The threat was targeted at Payman, the ABC reported<\/a>. Sharman had called the senator \u201ca domestic terrorist\u201d and indicated he had written Payman\u2019s name on a bullet intended for her.<\/p>\n