Victorian Greens leader Samantha Ratnam has come out swinging after an “organised campaign” of abusive messages culminated in someone joking about her newborn daughter Malala being shot in the head.
Her baby, born in early July, was named after Pakistani women’s education activist Malala Yousafzai, who made world news when the Taliban shot her in the head for going to school back in 2012.
“I named my daughter Malala after being inspired by the courage of a young woman who stood up to the most violent parts of her society,” Ratnam wrote on Facebook.
“And now I could see what lurked in my own.”
The abuse comes after Victoria’s state of emergency was extended by six months. The bill relied on crossbench support and passed by just one vote – Ratnam came into parliament while on maternity leave in order to cast hers.
“The abuse has been relentless. And some of my crossbench colleagues have experienced the same after we voted to support laws that would allow the Chief Health Officer to continue the work his team needs to do if we are to survive this pandemic,” she said.
Despite the abuse, Ratnam stands by her vote.
“I have never made a more important decision in my job as a Member of Parliament than this one,” Ratnam added.
“But a few days before this crucial vote, it became clear that without the support of the Greens, the bill would fail.
“It could have thrown the months of sacrifice all Victorians have been making to tackle the second wave of COVID-19 out of the window.”
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While both major parties, along with the crossbench, formed somewhat of a united front in Victoria during the first wave of the pandemic, Ratnam has accused the Liberal party of politicising the pandemic by refusing to support the bill which extended the state of emergency.
As opposition to the bill emerged, many people started to confuse the state of emergency with the lockdown restrictions themselves.
“The opposition didn’t seem interested in clarifying this confusion to their constituencies. Instead, they now seemed to be revelling in exploiting it,” she said.
She described her and her colleagues speeches’ in parliament as “sombre”.
“Flooded with thousands of emails and calls – clearly received after an organised campaign by those intent on undermining the current public health consensus – [the crossbench] wanted to be able to respond to what they were hearing from people doing it tough in their electorates,” she said.
In the wake of the bill passing, Ratnam’s social media accounts were flooded with abuse and personal attacks, including the comment which read: “Let’s hope your kid doesn’t get shot in the head like the real Malala.”
The Herald Sun reports Ratnam is one of several crossbench politicians in Victoria, including Reason Party leader Fiona Patten and Animal Justice Party MLC Andy Meddick, who have had to increase security and even involve the police after being inundated with threats.
According to The New Daily, spreadsheets containing the contact details of crossbench MPs were shared around in anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist Facebook groups in the lead-up to the vote.
The solution, according to Ratnam, is to stop politicising a global health crisis and instead come together to support reasonable, evidence-based measures.
“If this was the world we lived in, if our leaders found a better way of working across our differences, I imagine that we would be less likely to be on the receiving end of the torrents of abuse we have experienced this week,” she said.
