As a female member of the NSW Parliament in a minor party, I do not feel safe.
I’ve faced crude threats from an MP alluding to putting me on the spit at the next Shooter’s Party BBQ, and I was inundated with death and rape threats from men after the Shooters Party initiated a campaign against me, including messages that I should be “shot on the sheets”.
Recently I posted on social media my opposition to the latest Shooters Party Bill – a Bill to open up 50,000 hectares of public land (meant for all of us to use) to be handed over to hunters to shoot at animals dangerously using silencers. The Bill threatens public safety and will be an animal welfare nightmare. I had to turn off the comments on my Facebook post when hunters started with more death threats including one that was encouraging an ‘open season’ to kill me.
I am not the only female MP to have been targeted by the Shooters Party or the hunting fraternity. One of the Shooters MPs was recorded as saying a female Independent MP should have been ‘clocked’ and other female MPs have had to contend with sexist remarks.
Politics is about choices. A lot of politicians say the right thing when it comes to violence against women, but it is the actions that follow that make all the difference. So you can imagine my outrage when I heard rumours that the NSW Labor government had struck a deal with the Shooters Party to help them pass their Bill to turn NSW into a giant game park and risk the safety of the entire community along with animal welfare.
By aligning themselves with a party that seeks to further entrench harmful practices toward animals and the environment, and that has a history of targeting women, Labor risks undermining its claims to be a progressive party for women. Negotiating with the Shooters Party sets a dangerous precedent – one that could signal to voters that issues around violence to women and animal protection are negotiable – just another bargaining chip in the pursuit of power.
And the Bill is BAD. Like, really bad. The Bill will encourage more firearms ownership and it will use taxpayers’ money to create a new ‘Conservation Hunting Authority’ to encourage more hunting and gun ownership. This Bill is an outright attempt to roll back hard-won reforms that have kept Australian communities safe since the 1996 gun law reforms. The Bill also permits hunters to use prohibited weapons, including silencers, that are currently restricted for good reason—namely, to protect the public from the potential for mass shootings and firearm-related violence.
We know that firearms in the home are linked to higher rates of domestic violence-related deaths. In the United Sates, where guns are more prevalent, women are five times more likely to be killed in a domestic violence situation if her abuser owns a firearm. The Shooters Party’s Bill would increase access to guns and extremely dangerous weapons, so we could see the same trend in NSW. Labor’s potential support for such an agenda would represent a fundamental betrayal of their so-called stance against domestic violence.
It is incumbent upon the Labor Party to show leadership on this issue. They must reject any deals with the Shooters Party and commit to policies that are in the public interest and prioritise the protection of the community at large.
Allowing the Shooters Party to have influence in our politics not only threatens animal welfare and the environment – it puts all of our safety at risk.
As a survivor of domestic violence, I am publicly calling on the Premier Chris Minns to draw a line in the sand and assure the people of NSW that he will not support the harmful agenda of the Shooters Party.
Empowering the wrong people will leave every female MP feeling unsafe in this workplace, and it will create a risk for the entire NSW community. It is not a big ask, and I am angry that I have to even ask it.
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