A man who allegedly threatened staff at Hannah Beazley's electorate office was known to police, WA's police commissioner has revealed, as he urged politicians not to hide away from their communities.
John Lawrence Smart faced Perth Magistrates Court yesterday, accused of making threats at the state MP's office in inner-city Victoria Park on Wednesday while in the possession of an "improvised martial arts weapon".
The 56-year-old has been charged with being armed to cause fear, making a threat and possessing cannabis.
A magistrate said Mr Smart had a schizophrenia diagnosis, and refused his bail. He is scheduled to appear in court again later this month.
Speaking outside state parliament after briefing the leaders of WA's political parties on the current threat level, Police Commissioner Col Blanch said Mr Smart was familiar to police.
"Certainly a person who's not well," he said.
MPs urged to be on lookout
Commissioner Blanch said he was not aware of any MPs or their staff previously reporting concerns about Mr Smart or of any escalation in his behaviour.
But he said in many cases more generally, there could be indications of escalating behaviours, and he encouraged people to report those to police.
Col Blanch visited state parliament yesterday to brief the leaders of WA's political parties. (ABC News: Keane Bourke)
"There's grievances, there's fixated people, there's messaging online and then there's frequency of attendance," he said.
"The best thing we can do, in fact, if someone has a grievance and is fixated, we have areas like our Fixated Threat Assessment Centre.
"So we'll go and talk to those people. We might actually bring medical practitioners, psychologists, to talk to those individuals and hopefully prevent any violence."
While federal authorities have reported a significant increase in threats against MPs and other public officials in recent years, Commissioner Blanch said that was not the case in WA.
He said that was why his advice was generally about politicians being more aware of their surroundings and any early indicators of risk.
"It's not a time to be knee-jerk and disappear from our community. It's important [we're there]," he said.
Incident 'rattling': Beazley
The incident at the WA electorate office comes just days after Federal MP Helen Haines was attacked outside her electorate office in Victoria.
Ms Beazley said she and her staff were still shaken.
"As we've gotten more details from the police, it has been rattling, and seeing the person go into the custody of police is a relatively confronting thing to see," she said.
Ms Beazley predicted managing threats online would be challenging.
Hannah Beazley's office remained closed yesterday, although the MP's staff were still working. (ABC News: Lucy Murray)
"The online nature of a lot of these threats, whether that's by e-mail or through social media, adds real complexity to this and in terms of how you actually monitor it," she said.
"It is really grossly underestimated how much of that hate speech online is generated by bots and then those bots legitimise this behaviour in the community."
Push for security review
WA Greens MP Sophie McNeill said an urgent review of security at electorate offices was needed, saying threats had become “just a part of the job”.
Sophie McNeill says there needs to be stronger action against those who threaten politicians. (ABC News: Keane Bourke)
"Recently, I received a really graphic message that … was so descriptive in terms of the weapon that they wanted to use against me that I did report," she said.
"[But] you receive so many of them, you wouldn't have time to report them all."
It is understood state MPs will have an opportunity today to be briefed by police about the current threat level and how best to manage it.