As local elections loom this year, a torrent of online abuse has left some female councillors questioning their place in politics.
Breakfast has collected the accounts of several women in local government across the country.
Wellington City Councillor Teri O’Neill keeps a document of all of the abuse she receives online, “in case things escalate into real-life violence”.
As she nears the end of her second term, the Word document is 26 pages long.
Across the posts, she’s labelled as a “b***h”, “tart”, and a “shrew”, and many more slurs which cannot be published.
But the content goes further than words. Photoshopped images show the elected official superimposed into pornographic content.
“At its worst, it broke me. I would have panic attacks, go into shock, become numb and catatonic. People around me noticed. My best friend eventually put her foot down and made me leave Facebook.”
The posts O’Neill have saved don’t relate to a scandal. They’re scattered across posts about everyday council work: cycleways, airport shares decisions and city safety discussions in Facebook groups. Some show up in the comment sections of her colleagues’ weekly wrap-ups.
“The volume of hate really chips away at your spirit, and you start to wonder how much of yourself you have to give away, just to do your job.”
O’Neill’s fears of an escalation are not isolated.
Palmerston North Councillor Kaydee Zabelin said she has had “tough conversations” with her children as her concerns grow over one man’s behaviour.
“He knows what kind of car I drive, he knows what schools my kids go to, and he knows what routes I take in the morning to drop them off. And he’s very happy to post that onto online forums without concern about my privacy, and certainly not my kids’ privacy.”
While she has not taken her concerns to police, she said she is in the process of compiling evidence to bring forward.
Hamilton’s Louise Hutt has also had discussions with her family and has installed extra safety measures at her home.
“I’ve seen comments that include myself and other councillors that we should be taken behind the bike shed and have the living s**t beaten out of us. I’ve had unkind comments about my weight and appearance.
“It’s pretty horrifying at times when you realise that people think that’s okay to talk about someone who simply put their hand up, because I really care about the city that I live in.”
What concerns her, she said, is the “level of thick skin” being required of elected officials, to “simply keep existing in these environments”.
“You should be able to be soft… or be sensitive, and still be a city councillor. You shouldn’t have to be hardened to the world.”
Auckland Councillor Angela Dalton has spent 16 years in local office, both as an elected official and member of staff. This year she will not be seeking re-election.
“Actually I don’t have to put up with this BS anymore. I don’t. It’s just one reason why I’m choosing not to stand in local government this year.”
She said much of the harmful content about her online lives in the comment sections of her opposing colleagues.
“It’s a bit of a gaslighting approach that can then just generate more comments. They’re usually comments on someone else’s thread but they contain what I would call defamation.”
Dalton believed she would have to campaign twice as hard, to “prove that I’m not the things that have been said about me”.
“And having worked really hard in my community for my community for so many years… I didn’t think that I really wanted to do that.”
Dalton’s fellow councillor Kerrin Leoni has put her hand up for mayor and said online rhetoric is already escalating.
“There were a lot of comments around it being race-based politics, and thinking that I should have more of a chance because I’m Māori, and I’m female as well.
“[The commenters] didn’t identify anything around my Irish and my Italian background, but it definitely highlighted my Māori background.”
Leoni says she was “devastated” by the comments.
“We’re in 2025, and as a nation there’s been so much education around racism and all of the issues that are connected to that. So I was just horrified, really.”
In the South Island, another councillor who did not want to be named told Breakfast she has decided not to run for mayor due to the fear of how her family would be treated online.
Local Government New Zealand’s Susan Freeman-Greene said losing representation due to a ramp-up in harassment is a key concern, especially in a local election year.
“It impacts all councillors, but women do get gendered abuse. Sometimes it’s just keyboard warriors … sometimes it’s in the community which is even more threatening.”
A LGNZ survey in 2022 found 43% of elected members has experienced harassment, prejudice, threatening or derogatory behaviours in their role. One third said abuse occurred while they had been shopping or collecting children from school.
A proposed law which would make stalking a specific offence, with a jail time of up to five years, is currently making its way through Parliament.
The legislation will also provide a list of behaviours that may amount to stalking and harassment, including damaging reputation, recording, or tracking and following or loitering, as well as the use of technology. Three of those actions within a year could lead to a conviction.
The Bill passed its first reading under urgency last December.
While the legislation put forward “isn’t perfect”, Freeman-Greene said she believed it can be ironed out.
In total, 20 women told Breakfast of their experiences, detailing varying degrees of online abuse.
Napier Councillor Juliet Greig will be door-knocking at the next election as she chooses not to go on social media anymore.
Christchurch’s Sara Templeton said the country has “tried to ignore it for too long, hoping it will go away”.
In Dunedin, Sophie Barker says it “takes a toll” – adding many of her peers have trained themselves not to read negative comments.
Some women have informally banded together, regardless of their political leanings, to look out for one another.
“We quite religiously take screenshots of things we could use as evidence if we needed to,” Zabelin said.
“We’re really good sounding boards for each other so that we’re not isolated.”
In Wellington, O’Neill said there was solidarity “amongst women on the left wing and women on the right wing”.
“Sending a note to a group chat just saying hey, this guy’s come back again, he’s calling me all the time, or he’s put another post up. I’d encourage you to just block him.”
