I’ve followed our leaders for 10 elections now. Society is getting angrier

The days of a party leader shouting from the back of a truck to a crowd of prospective voters have long gone.

Pre-arranged trips to shopping centres or greeting people along main streets are also in the past.

Carefully choreographed (and security assessed) media events, with vetted “ordinary Australians” or, in the most recent case the son of a candidate, had been du jour to illustrate the particular MP is in touch with punters and their concerns.

But the 2025 election, in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, of the global financial crisis, of astro-turf lobby groups, the COVID/sovereign citizen cooker phenomena, of increasingly angry climate activists, and the conflict in Gaza, has taken a step into a much darker place.

Out on what is now my 10th election campaign trail, the change in our society is being reflected in the sharp increase in security enveloping all our political leaders – to the detriment of the nation’s democracy.

The ambush by alt-right video makers in the lobby of Anthony Albanese’s Melbourne hotel on Tuesday afternoon is the most obvious example of this darkening of the Australian political space.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have heavily scripted appearances on the campaign trail. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Daniel Jones, the self-styled bodyguard to far-right figure Avi Yemini who claimed responsibility for the confrontation, said he wandered into the hotel lobby, bought a coffee and then flicked through Facebook while waiting for the PM to arrive.

It followed an incident on Sunday when about 30 people dressed in black, their faces obscured with hoods and stockings, stood outside the Melbourne office of Liberal senator James Paterson and chanted racist slogans.

And last week, it was revealed that Peter Dutton had been a target of an alleged terrorist plot by a 16-year-old boy.

The first two incidents were open intimidation with a dark, ugly and menacing intent just below the surface. The alleged terrorist plot is far worse.

All of this has changed the 2025 campaign.

Through the 1990s and early 2000s, news outlets would report where a prime minister or opposition leader was headed the following day to spruik their messages.

That disappeared as political opponents sought to disrupt those events.

For more than a decade, those journalists travelling with the two leaders have been barely told what city they were headed to, let alone a particular suburb.

The fear now, however, is not about a few hardy local members of the Labor or Liberal party disrupting a press conference with some badly drawn placards. It’s turned to whether some grievance-fuelled anarchist will go much, much further.

Multiple federal police officers now flank Albanese and Dutton at press conferences. They’re not worried about the questions – both men mangle the English language enough to defuse any threat they may pose.

The police are concerned about the physical threat. The person willing to shout angrily, to get in the face of the men vying to be the next PM, to win a few minutes of fame on social media for their cause. Or, to the most extreme end, something much worse.

Australian election campaigns have, unlike their international counterparts, been largely free of violence. As Albanese noted on Wednesday, he has still been able to walk around Adelaide and Perth without attracting the ire of angry crowds.

But even in Perth, the police presence at both the Labor launch and in front of Albanese’s hotel was heightened.

Protesters have always been liable to get angry. But as a society we are getting angrier – from road rage to the interaction of parents on the sidelines of a school footy match.

That’s the concern at the back of the mind of those AFP officers trying to protect our political leaders.

The AFP has noted that threats against politicians have doubled over the past two years.

Just this week, a man tried to burn down the home of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Last year, there were running battles on British streets between right-wing protesters and police. Famously, a sniper killed an innocent bystander as he attempted to assassinate US President Donald Trump.

Even before the election campaign started, events by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and his shadow Angus Taylor were interrupted by Rising Tide activists, who also managed to interrupt a debate between Chris Bowen and Ted O’Brien.

Last week’s debate between Albanese and Dutton showed that ordinary Australians can press their political leaders politely and without malice.

But the growing threat to both men, to all MPs and their staff, is not coming from those who recognise the polite rules of politics. It’s increasingly coming from those who believe righteous anger for their cause justifies almost any means.

And that is likely to remove our politicians, and election campaigns, further from the reach of ordinary people.

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