Sydney man charged with threatening to kill communications minister Anika Wells and her family | Australian politics
A Sydney man has been accused of threatening to kill government minister Anika Wells and her family.
A 31-year-old Bankstown man allegedly sent two emails to Wells’ office in late November directly threatening to kill himself and his family members.
The emails were forwarded by Wells’ office to the Australian federal police’s national security investigation team.
AFP investigators linked the emails to the man and he was arrested following a raid on a Bankstown home on Friday. His electronic devices were seized within the scope of the search warrant.
The man was accused of using the transportation service to threaten to kill; This crime is a crime punishable by a maximum of 10 years in prison. He appeared at Bankstown court on Friday and was bailed to appear in court again on December 23.
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AFP’s Det Supt Jeremy Staunton said police had zero tolerance for threats and threatening behavior towards elected officials.
“Freedom of speech and political expression is key to a healthy democracy, but threats to politicians, and especially their families, are taken extremely seriously,” Staunton said.
“Police have the tools and resources to identify individuals or groups seeking to promote hatred and fear within our society, even if they are hiding behind the privacy of a keyboard or email account.”
The national security investigation team is a new task force within the AFP, established in September to “target groups and individuals who cause high levels of harm to the social cohesion of Australia”, including the targeting of federal parliamentarians.
The court did not hear details about the nature of the threat against Wells or the motive behind it.
Wells, the communications minister, is struggling with an expenses scandal involving travel for himself, his staff and his family; This included nearly $100,000 for airfare to New York for a ministry trip and $1,389 for his wife and two young children to join him at the Thredbo ski areas while he was there for a business event. Wells was defended by the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, who said all his spending was within rules allowing family reunification within the framework of his ministerial duties.
But the prime minister has since sought advice from the Independent Parliamentary Expenditure Authority on a review of MPs’ travel allowances.
But the emails allegedly sent to threaten Wells were before the expenses scandal became public.
As communications minister, Wells took responsibility for Australia’s worldwide but controversial social media ban, which came into force on December 10.
The ban bans anyone under the age of 16 in Australia from having accounts on major social media platforms including TikTok, X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat.
Wells’ communications portfolio is also responsible for the recent triple zero call failures. In September, a failure on the Optus network meant emergency calls were left offline for nearly 14 hours, during which time four people died, including an eight-week-old baby. Malfunctions caused by older mobile phones not being able to make emergency calls have been linked to two deaths.
