Police called in over ‘assassination threat’
By NOEL MURPHY
FEDERAL police are investigating a Facebook hate page linked to Geelong and calling for the assassination of prime minister elect Tony Abbott.
Geelong Police have also been alerted to claims of death threats against local Socialist Alliance members over suggestions the party was responsible for the page.
The Tony Abbott Should be Assassinated page was removed this week after a screenshot on another site suggested the page’s administrator was posting from Geelong Trades Hall and using a Socialist Alliance email address.
The page featured images of guns, profanities and threatening abuse. The page included posts with a photo of a machine gun and the provocative statement: “Tony Abbott a true Australia f…wit’’.
Other photos showed him in an abattoir beside a pig’s rear end and beside a pile of faeces.
Another said anyone who voted for Mr Abbott “deserves a bullet crammed up their a…”.
Numerous posts to the page berated its administrator as “a sick demented psycho”, “a clueless little snot desperate for attention” and a “laughably juvenile spoiled brat”.
Australian Federal Police (AFP) confirmed it was investigating the page.
“The AFP is currently assessing a number of Facebook pages and comments,” an AFP spokesperson said.
“The AFP treats reports of threats against members of parliament and high office seriously and investigates complaints where appropriate.
“Commentary of this nature can occur in a range of media forums, often anonymously, and where these comments are brought to the attention of the AFP an assessment is made.”
Socialist Alliance Geelong staffer Lisa Gleeson said she had reported threatening phone calls to Geelong Police.
“I got an abusive message saying, ‘I’ll effing kill you, you slut’.
“I didn’t know anything about the Facebook hate site at the time. It was this horrid phone call and I reported it quick smart.
“He asked, ‘Do you think Tony Abbott should be assassinated like Nazis?’. We’d certainly never ever advocate that, much less create a site with those intentions.”
Geelong Trades Hall Council secretary Tim Gooden said his office also received threats, which he reported to police.
“I got a message on the phone from someone abusing us for putting it on Facebook.
“Whoever did it has tried to implicate this building, at 127 Myers St, or the Socialist Alliance, with a view to having us get into trouble with the coppers and just about everyone else in the community.”
A Victoria Police spokesperson said the Geelong station had referred the threats against Trades Hall and Socialist Alliance members to the federal investigators.
