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Who is Nicolle Flint? Aussie MP says ‘creepy old’ man stalked her and graffiti labeled her 'skank, prostitute’

'They may not have held the camera pointed at me by the stalker...but they did create the environment in which hate could flourish,' she said

Liberal MP for Boothby Nicolle Flint broke down in Parliament on Wednesday as she recounted her experience of stalking and sexism throughout her campaign. The outgoing South Australian MP, who announced two weeks ago that she will be quitting her role, said she had been stalked and harassed both in person and over the phone. The MP, who said that women’s safety should not be about politics, added that her office, too, had been vandalized.

“The safety of women in this place, of female staff, of female MPs and senators, should be above politics,” she said, as she criticized Labor leader Anthony Albanese’s response to recent allegations.

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Who is Nicolle Flint?

Nicolle Flint was elected as the MP for Boothby in 2016. Her family connection to the local area began in 1920 when her great-grandfather settled in a War Service home in Lower Mitcham following his return from the Pozieres and Bullecourt during the First World War. Her family taught at and attended local schools and were active community volunteers.

She attended Flinders University, where she graduated with a Law Degree and Arts Degree with 1st Class Honors and was inspired by professors Dean Jaensch and Haydon Manning towards politics and policy. After university, she worked at the Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry in Canberra, and then for Liberal leaders Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull. She also spent several years as a newspaper columnist first for The Age and then for The Advertiser on returning to Adelaide. Flint was then elected as the Member for Boothby in 2016, replacing retiring Andrew Southcott, who had held the seat since 1996. She is the first woman elected to the seat since it was established in 1903. "Member for Boothby. Doesn’t tolerate rubbish views, especially about women!" reads her Twitter bio.

Office vandalized, graffiti calls her a 'prostitute'

In April 2018, the Australian Electoral Commission reduced the number of seats from 11 to 10, in accordance with South Australia's shrinking percentage of the Australian population, resulting in Flint's 2016 margin of 3.5% shrinking to 2.8%. Days before the election, Flint's campaign office was vandalized with offensive graffiti calling her a "skank" and a "prostitute". Following the election, Flint accused GetUp and Unions of being responsible for harassment, intimidation and stalking against her during the campaign.

Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday, Flint targeted the Labor Party, saying "they may not have held the spray can" to vandalize her office with sexist slurs, "they may not have held the camera pointed at me by the stalker...but they did create the environment in which hate could flourish.”

A 'terrifying' stalker 

Flint has accused one Dave Walsh, 65, of working “worked hand-in-glove” with activist campaigners, deliberately attempting to scare her off campaigning and showing up at events to photograph her through windows. The behavior frightened and “terrified” Flint, who had earlier abandoned a branded electorate vehicle plastered with her image to travel in, for fear for her safety because she lived alone.

Flint hit out at ABC Radio Adelaide host Peter Goers, in July last year, for commenting on her choice of clothing in a Sunday Mail column. Stripped down to a garbage bag in a video message against sexism, she said it was time women are judged on what they stand for and “not what they look like”. She also highlighted a tweet in which she said former journalist Mike Carlton had written that singer Jimmy Barnes showed “great restraint” in a Q&A episode for not leaping from his seat and “strangling” her.

'Don't want to be seen as drama queens'

Sky News presenter Ashleigh Gillon on Thursday morning said that any woman in the public eye 'has a lot of sympathy' for Nicolle Flint, since it is in all likeliness that they have experienced similar abuse. She congratulated Flint for coming out publicly with her ordeal and divulged her own terrifying experience of a violent stalker who broke seven windows at her parents' home. "He thought he was in a relationship with me, and that is a really stressful time," she said.

Gillon, who had worked as a political reporter for 15 years, said she was familiar with the type of abuse Ms Flint referred to. "I know what it's like to have random trolls on social media accusing you, often in really vulgar terms, of sleeping with a politician or sleeping with a male colleague," she said in a Daily Mail report. "These are accusations that people have just dreamed up — there is zero basis for them."

The Sky News newsreader said women don't speak about ongoing harassment because they don't want to make the wrong waves or 'be seen as drama queens'.

'An incredibly brave woman'

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Flint faced one of the ugliest election campaigns he had ever seen. “I think she’s an incredibly brave woman. I think she’s incredibly brave. I know how brave she was because I was there with her as she endured one of the ugliest campaigns I’ve ever seen waged against not just a woman but anyone in this country,” Morrison told reporters on Wednesday morning. “Her determination to stand up to that in the face of the most vitriolic of abuse, stalking and threats to her own public security was absolutely appalling.”

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese said her poor treatment “should not have happened”. “I stand with Nicolle Flint. Her ... story is one that is appalling, that that sort of behavior was directed at her. It shouldn’t happen. It shouldn’t happen to anyone," he said.

Watch the speech here