State and federal MPs around the country say they and their staff have received death threats from third parties amid controversy generated by the self-described “assertiveness” of the anti-abortion activist Joanna Howe.
Howe, an expert in migration law at the University of Adelaide, has campaigned for anti-abortion laws in various state parliaments, and this month organised a rally – attended by the former prime minister Tony Abbott – against NSW reforms to improve access to services. She said on social media people “need to be hysterical” about the bill, which represented what she called “an extreme, radical takeover of our country”.
In NSW parliament this week, the state Liberal leader, Mark Speakman, accused Howe of “brazen bullying”.
The NSW Greens MP Amanda Cohn, who introduced the bill, told Guardian Australia she had received “threats to my personal safety” from third parties and felt her workplace had become “unsafe” for her staff.
Labor’s Julia Finn accused Howe in NSW parliament last week of using “bizarre and nasty” tactics and “obnoxious, attention-seeking behaviour”.
She told parliament Howe had gone into her office and spoken to a heavily pregnant and “vulnerable” electorate officer, and “while she did not say anything unkind”, the interaction was filmed and posted without the staff member’s knowledge or consent. “That is not OK,” Finn said.
Howe did not take the post down when asked, Finn said.
Howe said in a social media post it was possible the staff member did not know she was being filmed but didn’t know if she (Howe) could be held responsible for that.
A federal MP who asked not to be named told Guardian Australia they were targeted online by Howe after expressing their views on abortion. They said they then received abusive messages from anonymous people, including one who said they hoped the MP would suffer and die, and another who said their mother should have “swallowed” so that they were never born. The MP said they were concerned enough about those messages to contact the police.
The independent South Australian MLC Tammy Franks, formerly of the Greens, told Guardian Australia her office received threats from third parties after Howe named her as part of the “Baby-Killers Club” for being opposed to what the Greens described as a “forced birth” bill last year. Howe was banned from SA parliament for her behaviour during the vote for that bill.
“We got lots of death threats, we got rape threats to the office … that was to the person who answered the phone,” Franks said.
Howe has posted multiple videos of herself following MPs and asking them questions about abortion. In one, she follows the South Australian child protection minister, Katrine Hildyard, as she leaves Easter mass and, as Hildyard helps a parishioner into a car, asks her why she wants “babies born dead”.
Hildyard was also one of the women Howe branded as part of the “Baby-Killers Club”.
Staff in the office of the Queensland Labor leader, Steven Miles, called the police after Howe entered their office last year and the person with her began filming without consent, while she asked a staff member about abortion and refused to leave when asked.
Howe posted a video of the police talking to her after the incident. The police said their concern was that she had not left when asked. Howe said she thought it was “problematic in a democracy” that she couldn’t speak to Miles, who was premier at the time, to “hold him to account”, and “insane” that the staff member called the police. No charges were laid.
One social media post from Howe about Miles attracted multiple comments from other internet users wishing death on Miles, including saying someone should “terminate his life”, that he should “have a date with a NOOSE” and that he should swing “from the gallows”. The comments remain online.
In 2023, the Labor MLC Lorna Harper told the Western Australian parliament Howe had attacked her and her beliefs online and encouraged her followers to “leave offensive messages” on her social media for supporting abortion legislation. Harper said “according to [Howe’s] followers” she was “a baby killer, a murderer, not fit to be in parliament, a radical, highly offensive, gutless, coldblooded and a feminist extremist”.
‘Not your nice, pro-life Christian girl’
Howe has been praised by the Coalition senators Alex Antic and Matt Canavan, the United Australia Party senator Ralph Babet and some state parliament representatives for her advocacy for anti-abortion laws, none of which have passed.
Speakman told parliament this week Howe had “threatened to lead a public campaign aimed at encouraging a grassroots opposition to you as Liberal leader” if he supported the NSW bill.
“I will not cave to brazen bullying like this nor to the Americanisation of NSW politics,” Speakman said.
Howe said in response on social media that politicians used parliamentary privilege to tell “the most brazen lies” while they “work with their comrades in the media in advance” to get coverage.
She said MPs weaponised accusations of misinformation and disinformation and likened it to “some kind of Tourette’s” or “verbal diarrhoea”.
She said of being called a bully that it was “democracy” and she was just asking questions.
“It’s not like I’m going around threatening to beat up their family or I’m finding them in a dark alleyway and I’m … harassing them,” she said. She said pro-life women and church leaders had always sat down with politicians for meetings and “just lost dismally”, playing “Christian voters for fools”.
“I’m not your nice pro-life Christian girl,” she said. “I bring a level of activism and assertiveness and it’s clearly effective because it’s rattled you [NSW politicians],” she said.
“You’re just going to have to get with the program, because the old sitting down for a meeting and listening to your BS … those days are over. We’re not doing that any more.”
Howe also published video of the NSW premier, Chris Minns, criticising her. “He’s just called me a liar and a bully,” she said. “It really just shows how fragile these snowflake politicians are.”
Other comments he made were “good” for a potential defamation action, she said.
“For Minns to say that, you know, I’m responsible for all this misinformation, whipping up this hysteria – people need to be hysterical about this bill,” she said. “This was an extreme, radical takeover of our country.”
Howe targeted the federal Liberal senator Maria Kovacic with a petition for her to be “dumped”, describing her as having an “anti-child, anti-family ideology”. Kovacic told Guardian Australia MPs had a duty to resist attempts to coerce them into silence or submission.
Franks said she “can’t believe” the University of Adelaide lets Howe “trade on her association with that institution as a law professor when her lack of respect for … what is reasonable behaviour in the democratic process continues to be flouted”.
The university said academics were free to “make lawful public comment on any issue in their personal capacities”, but were expected to comply with the university’s code of conduct. It did not say whether it considered Howe’s actions to be in accordance with the code.
Howe did not respond to a request for comment, but posted on X saying she did not need to answer questions and was “busy being a real person with a life”.
