‘I’m tired of fighting’: Nicolle Flint’s emotional plea to trolls

The Liberal MP has appealed to online trolls to stop the abuse, accusing senior Labor MPs of failing to condemn attacks on her.

An emotional Nicolle Flint has appealed to online trolls to “stop” their abuse of her after she accused senior Labor MPs of failing to condemn the bullying, sexism and stalking against her during last year’s federal election campaign.

Ms Flint, the Liberal member for the South Australian seat of Boothby, has announced she will not contest the next election.

“I have tried not to cry during my speeches and during TV and radio interviews I’ve done and at times I’ve failed and I’ll probably fail now,” she told the Federation Chamber.

“As a woman I get angry at myself for doing this but as I wrote in my opinion piece in The Sydney Morning Herald today, I’m tired of the political fight, I’m tired of pretending to be brave, I’m tired of having to defend the fact I’m a woman and yet here I am having to fight and defend myself again.

“The online abuse, trolling, victim shaming and blaming, the complete denial of things I have suffered during my time in parliament, what has been aimed at me over the past 48 hours is disgusting and those involved should be ashamed.”

Ms Flint singled out a tweet from Saturday Paper columnist Paul Bongiorno who said GetUp’s “excellent interview” on ABC radio on Thursday “exposes the politically motivated smear campaign being mounted by a couple of Liberal women as a distraction from their own government’s manifest failures with gender equity and sexual abuse”.

Excellent interview on @RNBreakfast where Getup! exposes the politically motivated smear campaign being mounted by a couple of Liberal women as a distraction from their own government’s manifest failures with gender equity and sexual abuse.

— Paul Bongiorno (@PaulBongiorno) March 17, 2021

“I can’t believe that journalists like Paul Bongiorno are tweeting that my experience is merely a politically motivated smear campaign against GetUp,” she said.

“I’ve had women on Twitter who claim to be against violence against women tweeting that I’m playing a gender card. Senator Hollie Hughes’ response to these sort of attacks says it all – this is disgraceful, we believe all women except conservative women.

This is disgraceful! We believe all women except conservative women. Misogyny runs deep in Lefty men. Apart from @NicolleFlint having had her harassment publicised as it was occurring, these guys still want to call her a liar. Disgusting! https://t.co/cwopQvZdbN

— Senator Hollie Hughes (@hollieahughes) March 17, 2021

“Johannes Leak’s cartoon in The Australian today says it all as well. It’s disgraceful as are the many, many emails I’ve received.”

Cartoon: Johannes Leak

Ms Flint read out some of the correspondence she’d received in the last 48 hours, which included:

“‘Please do not use the female cry tactic’ – I apologise for having done that again – ‘it will not work and it’s not a male’s world, it’s that you’re weak. No wonder you’re being stalked by someone, you deserve it, you’re a piece of crap’.

“‘Please do not complain about the treatment you’re receiving as obviously this is your weak characteristic and others will capitalise on this trait. If you’re not strong then this place is not for weaklings’.

“‘I do not believe one word you said. The filth you’re associated with both in your past with Sky News and the LNP rape club with its continued lies and cover ups give me the reason not to believe you, don’t insult my intelligence with denials or your false crocodile tiaras. I’m looking forward to seeing your demise’.

“‘You are a most rancid coward and infamous and endless liar, a consummate, shrivelled dirtbag, a ruling class s-l-u-t, an intellectual disgrace. Now go lick your smokies balls you Liberal crim’.”

Ms Flint declared: “This has to stop.”

Labor frontbencher Ed Husic spoke in support of Ms Flint after her speech, saying the treatment of her was “completely unacceptable”.

“Our democracy is strengthened by being able to challenge ideas in a way that do not resort to what we have had to see experienced in this place and certainly as someone who’s experienced it in their own way as a result of their own faith, I do appreciate that this is a completely unacceptable standard,” he said.

“We must do better, we must strive for better.”

Anthony Albanese, Labor’s Senate leader Penny Wong and opposition education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek have this week lashed the campaign waged against Ms Flint in her marginal seat and said they stood with her and wanted to work with her to protect all women in parliament.

Labor’s cabinet secretary Jenny McAllister said she was concerned by attempts to undermine women in her party who had been “amongst the strongest over many decades in working for women’s equality”.

“I have seen Tanya Plibersek and Penny Wong take every opportunity they’ve had to call out bad behaviour and to support women,” she said.

“The project for women’s equality is not complete, but the blame for that should not be laid at the feed of the women who have fought the hardest.”

Ms Flint claimed Senator Wong, Ms Plibersek and the Opposition Leader did not speak out against her bullies when she was “chased, harassed and screamed at” by GetUp, Labor and union supporters last year.

GetUp campaign director Ruby-Rose O’Halloran questioned the timing of Ms Flint and NSW Liberal MP Fiona Martin speaking out about their alleged treatment by GetUp campaigners.

Ms Martin said she was pushed by one of their volunteers and had a corflute pulled out of her hand during the 2019 election campaign.

Nicolle Flint on Thursday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

“We have to look at the timing and ask ourselves why the Liberal Party are coming out now and trying to depict GetUp members as being part of the problem in politics and the reason for that is they’re trying to distract from the fact that the Attorney-General, the highest law officer in the country, has been accused of rape and the Prime Minister is standing behind him,” she told ABC radio.

Ms O’Halloran said the first she’d heard about Ms Martin’s allegation was on Wednesday.

“If we’d been made aware of it at the time we would’ve taken swift action to get to the bottom of what had happened. We have a really, really stringent code of conduct for all of our volunteers and anyone who participates in any of our campaigns and we have a zero tolerance policy towards any kind of violence,” she said.

“GetUp absolutely does not engage in campaigns that are intended to intimidate conservative politicians or anyone else for that matter.”

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said it was a “travesty” Ms Flint had decided to leave politics.

“She’s decided that she doesn’t want to contest the next election, largely because of the treatment of the last,” he told 2GB radio.

“It’s GetUp, The Greens and it’s the extreme left of the Labor Party that now have the dominant numbers under Anthony Albanese’s leadership who condone all of this.

“They tolerate Nicolle Flint being attacked because of her gender or the way that she dressed.”

With Adeshola Ore