Mayors and councillors facing the rising tide of online abuse: ‘Too scared to go outside’

Ashburton’s deputy mayor Liz McMillan has observed an increase in abuse directed at councillors, predominantly online. It’s a trend echoed by recent data revealing that over half of elected members in New Zealand have faced increasing abuse. Local Democracy reporter Jonathan Leask looks into the behaviour that is increasingly becoming a threat to democracy.

Liz McMillan is looking at a social media post suggesting councillors should be thrown in a woodchipper.

It’s one of several screenshots of abusive comments Ashburton’s deputy mayor has on her phone, showing how the abuse aimed at elected members has changed over the years.

“It’s just not alright.

“We are just people doing our job.”

Recent poll data from Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) suggesting the abuse aimed at councils is on the rise reverberates in Ashburton.

While the abuse appears to be predominately in online form for Ashburton’s councillors, so far, extreme incidents have occurred elsewhere.

Former Nelson Mayor Rachel Reese arrived home in February to find an “enraged stranger” wielding a nail gun in her house.

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

“Sadly, it won’t come as a huge surprise to those in local government,” she said.

Fifty-three per cent of polled elected members said the level of abuse they were facing was greater than a year ago.

In addition, 65% of elected members said they had faced abuse online, 39% had faced it at community events, and 33% faced it doing everyday activities, like shopping or collecting children from school.

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

Ashburton's Deputy Mayor Liz McMillan, standing between chief executive Hamish Riach and Mayor Neil Brown, says the level of online abuse aimed at the council is increasing and the tone has changed. Photo / LDR

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

She has been shouted at and confronted in public a couple of times, and even received an abusive phone call before, but it’s the online abuse that is increasing – in magnitude and tone.

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

“When I started, people would be saying things about ‘the bloody council’ and then I read one a few weeks ago that suggested we all needed to go through the woodchipper.

“My kids are on social media now and they don’t need to be seeing that sort of comments and carry on.”

Previously it was generic negative criticism and now it feels more targeted and abusive, McMillan said.

She doesn’t accept the line of thinking of people saying it’s par for the course of being on a council.

There is a major difference between people voicing an opinion and constructive criticism, and being abusive or threatening.

She can understand the community having its frustrations. She lives in Methven, which for the past few years was troubled by ongoing boil water notices every time it rained.

It meant staying at home to shelter from the storm of words rather than the rain.

Methven Community Board chairperson Kelvin Holmes, Mayor Neil Brown and deputy mayor Liz McMillan toasting the opening of Methven's new water treatment plant - a very happy occasion for McMillan as she knew she would no longer have to answer for boil water notices. Photo / Jonathan Leask, LDR

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

The opening of Methven’s new water treatment plant last year has put an end to the boil water notices, but the negative online comments, like a virus infecting a new host, moved on to the next topic.

McMillan has been an active social media user to readily and widely share information.

The growing weight of negative commentary has seen her switch off the notifications.

“I’m still active on there, getting information and responding to messages, but I don’t go out of my way to respond to posts or comments the way I used to.”

Social media has allowed people to instantly comment on something wherever they are rather than approaching a councillor in the street and expressing a view face to face, she said.

“Come with an alternative idea or solution, don’t go saying you’ll chuck us in a woodchipper.

“It doesn’t put you off but it makes you question why you are doing it, being told you are doing a crap job and you are useless all the time is tough.

“If I don’t stand someone else will and they will still get the same feedback.

“It doesn’t matter who they are and sometimes, I hate to say it but I think as a female you get a bit of an earful because people think they can treat you like that or you don’t understand different things, but I’ve done this a long time.”

While McMillan has been an elected member, both of the community board and council, for 17 years, there are three first-term councillors around the table coming to grips with the harsh reality of public office and public perception.

One of those is Phill Hooper, who recently penned an opinion piece directed at the keyboard warriors “out of frustration”.

Ashburton District Councillor Phill Hooper. Photo / LDR SINGLE USE IMAGE

After the many hours spent by councillors to finalise the long-term plan, the comments from a few suggesting the council had pre-determined its decisions and ignored the community were his tipping point.

“The people at the council table are community-minded citizens, making decisions with the best interest of the community in mind.

“We won’t please everybody with every decision, but we don’t deserve the vilification for making the tough decisions – and especially not without people taking the time to understand the reasons behind them.”

Criticism is part of the job of “being employed by the community, and we are accountable to them”.

Any decision will have varying degrees of opposition and constructive criticism is welcomed by the councillors, but abuse is not, Hooper said.

The comments that stood out to him were around the council’s decision to sell or demolish the Balmoral Hall in two years.

“People wrote that the council needed demolishing and ‘you bring the sledgehammers and I’ll bring the pry bars and shovels’.

“They have a right to disagree and to be frustrated, and it’s fair enough to voice them, but that sort of comment crosses the line – even if they think it’s a joke.”

At the start of the term, Hooper began sharing his journey as a new councillor on social media, hoping to enlighten people on the inner workings of the council and as a way to engage the public.

Soon enough the negative comments put an end to it.

“In the end, I just got soured toward the whole social media thing and just stopped doing it.

“If it’s constantly negative and there is no constructive feedback, you tend to shy away from it.”

He is now a more passive user of social media, keeping an eye on it to gauge community feeling, but he has refrained from engaging in the comments after some less-than-savoury exchanges, and has switched off his notifications because “it’s just so negative all the time”.

He feels it’s a case of no matter who sits around the council table, the negative commentary will continue which could be off-putting to potential candidates ahead of next year’s election.

Hooper also stuck by the words in his opinion column, challenging the social media commentators to fill in their nomination form next year.

Ashburton District Council chief executive Hamish Riach said the content and frequency of behavioural incidents across councils in New Zealand “definitely appears to be getting worse”.

The council doesn’t have statistics on abuse faced by its elected members, but Riach suspects Ashburton’s situation, especially regarding online abuse, would align with the LGNZ polling.

It’s not only elected members who are affected, with council staff also increasingly receiving abusive and threatening behaviour.

“Incidents of staff abuse occur both within our facilities and in the field, with some positions at greater risk due to the duties of their positions.”

The shift to the new library and civic centre has brought new challenges, he said.

Ashburton's civic centre Te Whare Whakatere. Photo / LDR

“The wider offering of activities within the new library, Te Kete Tuhinga, has increased patronage and broadened our user demographics.

“This is a really positive outcome and we have seen a wide range of community members accessing the facility that we didn’t see much of in the old library.

“However, there have been some incidents in the library and council services areas where behaviours by individuals have fallen short of our expectations.”

Council staff are trained to stay safe when dealing with abusive and aggressive customers.

“We are doing more of it than in the past. It continues to be a focus.”

During the current council term, starting November 2022, 13 people have been trespassed from council facilities, Riach said.

There have been incidents that have required police intervention, he said.

Most of the abuse aimed at the council is being generated through social media.

“We’re aware that some councils have turned off comments on their social media posts, but it’s not something we’re currently considering.

“We are looking at introducing clearer community standards to our social media accounts so we can make sure we’re providing a space that encourages constructive conversation.”

Riach couldn’t recall any individual posts in recent years that have required the comments to be turned off completely.

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

“This is typically because of offensive or abusive language, linking to misinformation or spam.

“If the abuse is gratuitous, contains threats of violence or is sustained over a long period, the user will be blocked.”