When Public Figures Cry Hostility: The Real Harassment and the Deeper Causes
Western Australia's Premier Roger Cook has joined a growing chorus of politicians warning about an "increasingly hostile environment" for public figures, largely blaming social media for amplifying abuse, threats, and intimidation. In the wake of reported death threats and online campaigns, Cook is not wrong to highlight the problem. Credible threats of violence, coordinated harassment, and attempts to silence individuals through fear have no place in a healthy democracy. Such behaviour is indefensible and deserves condemnation.
Yet focusing solely on the symptoms: the nasty tweets, the anonymous messages, the occasional escalation, misses the forest for the trees. The hostility we see online is not appearing in a vacuum. It is the predictable outcome of widespread suffering, economic pressure, cultural dislocation, and a profound sense of alienation among ordinary citizens who feel their voices have been systematically ignored by those who govern them.
For years, political and media elites have pushed transformative policies on migration, housing, infrastructure, and cultural change with minimal regard for the cumulative impact on existing communities. Rapid population growth through large-scale immigration has placed enormous strain on housing affordability, hospital waiting lists, school overcrowding, and transport systems. Wages in certain sectors face downward pressure while remittances flow out of the country in the billions. Neighbourhoods change character quickly, and longstanding residents often feel like strangers in their own towns. When these pressures mount and public figures celebrate the changes or dismiss concerns as "racism" or "xenophobia," resentment festers.
Social media has not created this anger; it has simply made it visible. In previous eras, frustrated citizens might have written letters to the editor, attended town halls, or quietly shifted their votes. Today, platforms allow instant, unfiltered expression. Much of it is crude, some of it crosses into unacceptable territory, but the underlying sentiment is often rooted in legitimate experience: the feeling that the social contract has been broken, that governments serve international interests, corporate needs, or new arrivals more attentively than the people who built the country.
Premier Cook and others in similar positions often speak as though the solution is simply better moderation, more censorship, or appeals to "civility." This approach treats the public as the problem rather than examining the policies that fuel discontent. It is a comfortable position for those insulated from the daily consequences of high migration, rising living costs, and declining social trust. For those on the receiving end: young Australians locked out of home ownership, workers competing in a global labour market, families watching their communities transform, the disconnect feels profound.
None of this justifies death threats or real-world harassment. Civilised society depends on rejecting violence and credible intimidation. But pretending that the hostility is merely the product of "misinformation" or "echo chambers" is itself a form of gaslighting. People are not irrational for noticing when their quality of life declines, when promises of economic benefit fail to materialise for the average citizen, or when elite discourse treats their concerns as moral failings rather than policy failures.
History shows that ignoring popular discontent does not make it disappear. It builds pressure until it finds other outlets. The healthier path is to acknowledge the genuine grievances driving alienation: the right to expect that immigration policy serves the national interest rather than abstract globalist goals; the expectation that governments prioritise housing, wages, and cohesion for citizens; and the basic democratic principle that criticism, even sharp, satirical, or angry criticism, should be protected rather than pathologised.
Public figures who truly want to reduce hostility should start by listening. Address the housing crisis without blaming "NIMBYs." Reform migration settings toward sustainability and integration rather than volume. Speak honestly about the trade-offs and costs instead of offering platitudes about diversity dividends. Restore confidence that the system works for the people who sustain it.
Until then, social media will continue to reflect the fractures in society. The "hostile environment" is real, but its deepest causes lie not in tweets and posts, but in policies that have left too many feeling like strangers in their own land. Recognising that reality is the first step toward lowering the temperature, not through suppression, but through responsiveness.
