Environment Minister David Speirs shuts Facebook again after trolls threaten to kill him

Sustained trolling by environmental activists has forced Environment Minister David Speirs off Facebook for a second time this year.

Environment Minister David Speirs has shut down his Facebook page for the second time this year after a troll’s death threat, which has been referred to police.

The anonymous threat, obtained by The Advertiser states: “Watch your back mate. After what you have done someone is going to take the chance and I hope they make you suffer.”

The threat on Tuesday followed the minister’s comments on a dispute between Adelaide Koala Rescue and the Environment Department, which wants the group to release as many of the animals as are fit for a return to the wild before they are relocated from its base in Campbelltown to a new home in Lenswood.

Environment Minister David Speirs at Cleland Wildlife Sanctuary. AAP Image/Roy VanDerVegt.

Mr Speirs’s closure of his Facebook page is revealed in a letter to the Opposition appealing for help to stop the trolling.

The Minister also withdrew from Facebook in March when he was attacked over an Environment Department approval to cull a colony of 200 wombats on Yorke Peninsula.

“Most horrifying were comments aimed at my brother and his wife in the days after their wedding asking if they had decorated their wedding reception venue with the carcasses of dead wombats,” the letter states.

Another troll on Mr Knoll’s Facebook page stated: “I wish we could cull politicians”, and another called him a “Wombat murderer” and suggested the carcasses of dead animals be dumped at his office.

Last month MPs, mainly women, advocating changes to SA abortion law were targeted by religious extremists on social media.

Opposition human services spokeswoman Nat Cook said Mr Speirs would be criticised less on social media if he responded better to community groups, and the antipathy had been created by funding for Adelaide Koala Rescue being delayed for so long.

“The koala rescue organisation was left too long and it was just cruel for a non government organisation to be left hanging like that,’’ she said.

“I myself have a pile of letters outstanding with David Speirs over the last nine months, as have many members of parliament.”

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