AFP boss Reece Kershaw warns politicians to think carefully about plans during federal election campaign

Australia’s top cop has warned politicians heading into a federal election campaign their safety is at risk with record numbers of threats, including bullets being sent in the mail and their children targeted.

AFP commissioner Reece Kershaw warned politicians to think carefully about their plans during the campaign as he shared “sobering information” about what they collectively had been facing.

Already this financial year, 712 threats to high office holders, federal parliamentarians, dignitaries and electorate offices have been reported, and the figure is on track to overtake last year’s record level.

Mr Kershaw said targets were across the political spectrum and of different faiths.

“Australia’s politicians and high office holders are being targeted because they have a public profile, because of the comments they have made in the media or their positions on policy,” he said.

“However, in some cases, it appears male offenders are targeting women because they are women.”

He described the nature of threats and comments directed at female parliamentarians and high office holders as “particularly troubling”, with much of the offensive material featuring derogatory language about their appearance and sometimes containing “extremely violent themes, including threats of graphic, sexual violence”.

He said free speech “does not extend to freely expressing how they plan to kill someone or sexually assault them”.

Six men have been charged in the last 13 weeks in five separate incidents of threatening parliamentarians. One man has been charged with allegedly threatening a political organisation.

Before Mr Kershaw’s warnings on Thursday, WA senator Fatima Payman shared on social an abusive email she had received, saying it was just the latest of threatening communications she was sent daily.

The expletive-laden email labelled her “a domestic terrorist” and contained two death threats.