After Charlie Kirk was assassinated in the US, a small mental health charity based in Melbourne was alarmed to find itself the target of people outraged at commentary about his death.
The phone calls and messages began after the organisation’s contact details were shared, including by the Australian senator Ralph Babet, who posted the charity’s phone number, email address and website on his social media.
Babet identified the charity, VMIAC, as the potential workplace of Grace*, who was accused of celebrating Kirk’s death.
The senator – who had separately written on his social media “we are at war” after Kirk’s death – urged his followers to contact the organisation and push for Grace to be sacked. Parts of his post were published in a Daily Mail article.
Grace had left the charity a year ago. Still, the angry messages flooded in.
“There have been thousands,” said Vrinda Edan, the chief executive of VMIAC. “Some of the voicemails, in particular, were highly distressing.”
Babet made a number of posts about people he deemed critical of Kirk. But most were about Grace, who has a modest social media following.
After Kirk’s death she commented on TikTok: “Let’s never forget that Charlie Kirk used his whole head to defend your second amendment right to own guns.”
In a subsequent post, she said: “This wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t had continued to abuse people the way that he did.”
The next day, she argued: “It is not wrong or unethical or unkind to laugh at the misfortunes of terrible people. Charlie Kirk incited violence. That’s what he did, and then that came back to haunt him … it’s got nothing to do with the people who are laughing and joking about him becoming a human water fountain.”
Babet wrote on X: “This is beyond disturbing. I urge you to contact her employer and voice your concern. I’ll be doing the same first thing in the morning. People like this are dangerous.
“Their unhinged attitudes will only incite more political assassination if left unchecked. The only appropriate outcome is for this woman to be removed from her position at this organisation, if she is indeed employed there.”
Some of Grace’s comments were subsequently published by news.com.au and the Daily Mail.
The charity’s staff had to open the hate mail it received, answer the phone calls and listen to the voicemails, because they came through the same channels clients use to seek help.
“All of our employees have identified as having [lived experience of mental health or distress] and so there’s been a fair bit of ‘You’re all crazy. You should all be locked up’,” Edan said of the messages.
Asked what she thought about the involvement of a senator, Edan said: “They are holding us to a standard that they’re not willing to hold up themselves. It feels incredibly hypocritical to me that he [Babet] is asking for his freedom of speech to have a go at us, but nobody else is allowed their freedom of speech.”
After Babet’s post, another person the charity didn’t know posted the contact details of the organisation’s board. The phone number of a staff member was also shared.
Babet later emailed the management company of another individual – an online commentator – who had made a video criticising Babet and accusing him of “doxing” Grace. The person argued in their video that Babet was involved in the “weaponisation” of his power as a senator, to legitimise the abuse of “private citizens”.
Babet posted details of that person’s social media channels on X, along with the letter he had sent to their management agency.
In the letter, Babet asked the agency if it supported the man’s views “and by extension the views of [Grace] whom he has in our opinion defended”. The senator said his own actions in relation to Grace had been mischaracterised.
“This [doxing] claim is factually inaccurate,” the letter said. “Senator Babet did not reveal any private or personal information. He merely shared a video that [Grace] had herself uploaded publicly to TikTok.”
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Babet was contacted for comment.
‘The most terrifying week of my life’
The response to comments on Kirk’s death has not been as extreme in Australia as in the US, where teachers, firefighters, journalists and politicians are among those fired, suspended or censured. But experts say Australians have been emboldened to harass those they regard as having celebrated Kirk’s death.
Kaz Ross, an independent researcher into rightwing extremism, said Kirk’s death had been weaponised “to go after what has been characterised as the far left” in Australia.
“There are a lot of forces trying to make it an ongoing issue and trying to run with this,” she said.
Politicians and the media weighing in risked enflaming divisions and creating targets, she said.
Ross said Grace’s comments were insensitive and that people can be driven to post “rage bait” in a bid to get more engagement online.
“I think that people with some sort of platform, whether as an Australian senator or as a professional in the mental health field, have a responsibility to be temperate in their words especially in times of heightened emotion and political tension such as in the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s murder,” Ross said.
Most attacks in Australia have focused on those with a public profile who commented on Kirk’s killing. That includes the podcast host Abbie Chatfield and Hannah Ferguson, the chief executive officer of Cheek Media Co. Both were labelled “disgusting humans” in a Sky News After Dark segment.
Chatfield had posted “even (though) I hate Charlie Kirk this is bad for everyone (to be honest)”.
“The right (and possibly the left) will become more violent in replacement of actual democracy.
“He will be martyred, they won’t see that this is BECAUSE of right wing views on gun control that this could even happen.”
In a statement on social media, Chatfield subsequently said she had received numerous death threats that included her address.
After Kirk’s killing, Ferguson wrote an article arguing for a public conversation on how to progress past political violence.
On Instagram, she made a post that included the line: “Is violence sometimes necessary? Yes.” She later said its purpose was to “acknowledge the reality that throughout history there have been times when an oppressed group has needed to engage in acts of resistance”.
“[But] the immediate followup to that line is that this act of political violence is not one of progress. It’s not one to be condoned.”
Ferguson said she had long experienced abuse online but the week after commenting on Kirk’s murder was “without a doubt” the worst.
“I’ve got a death threat before but I’ve never really received this level,” the 27-year-old said. “It’s genuinely been the most terrifying week of my life.”
VMIAC said it was seeking legal advice after receiving the Kirk-related calls and emails.
* Real name withheld for privacy reasons
