Our federal parliamentarians and the Governor-General were subjected to a spike in nasty online threats, vile letters and verbal assaults in 2022, according to the Australian Federal Police. One of the great things about our democracy is that our pollies are relatively easy to access – including those at the top of the tree. But with the number of direct threats made against them in the last 3 years tripling to 548 reports of harassment, nuisance and other threats, the AFP is dedicating more resources to protecting them. The surge in cases has been put down to the increase in far-right extremism and conspiracy movements supercharged by the pandemic. One expert said that the trick for the AFP is to “pick through all of this noise” to identify the small number of people who might follow through on their threats.