Until last year, Adriano Valentino’s social media was limited to posts about his carpentry business, nights out and his late golden retriever.
A year ago, he began posting inflammatory videos about local politics. It began with a late-night visit to the family home of Cumberland’s then-mayor Ola Hamed, whose car had been firebombed weeks earlier, and he questioned security guards about her. Later, he filmed interactions with the police as they asked him to leave council premises.
This week, he filmed himself walking up to Parramatta councillor Tanya Raffoul while she was at the gym, verbally abusing her and two family members in a seven-minute post. “The problem is,” Valentino said as he was escorted out by a personal trainer, “these f---ing, these women.”
As political violence dominates the headlines following the alleged attack on Indi MP Helen Haines, female councillors across western Sydney have raised the alarm about worsening threats to their safety.
Valentino, a 43-year-old recently ordered to pay back almost $400 after shoplifting from Bunnings, approached Raffoul as she was working out with her brother and sister. He accused her of being “f---ing rude and ignor[ing] me” after she stopped responding to a series of messages about a pile of rubbish in her ward. She had asked him for information about its location and told him it would be cleaned up, but he kept texting her.
Raffoul previously reported her concerns about Valentino to the police but was advised there was little they could do because he had not directly threatened her. “At what point do we say enough is enough?” she said. “At what point will I feel safe again? At what point will I be protected? When I’m in hospital? Or when it’s too late?
“You can disagree with my political affiliations, voting record and policy decisions. That’s your right in a democratic society, but deliberately targeting me … is unacceptable.”
‘A consequence-free zone’
Licia Heath, chief executive of advocacy group Women for Election, said the contents of the video should be enough to warrant extra security protection for Raffoul.
“In what world do we not have enough evidence to say she is in harm’s way?” Heath said. “It ultimately becomes: are we in a consequence-free zone? Are there any consequences for that kind of behaviour and discourse and harassment and stalking, or is it consequence-free? Because consequence-free results in rising temperatures [of political debate].”
Global research from Rutgers International in 2024 found evidence of a growing “online-offline continuum of violence”: online abuse is increasingly turning into real-world violence.
“So when patterns start forming and escalation is clearly happening, it is inadequate to say to any woman [a man] hasn’t actually committed a violent act yet,” Heath said.
Dozens of the almost 500 comments under Valentino’s video are derogatory towards Raffoul. She said she has experienced an increase in threatening messages after it was posted.
“Messages I’ve received, including ‘Give your life to someone who really needs it c---’ and ‘Deport the Arab’, are disgusting,” she said. “This behaviour must not be normalised. Something needs to change, and quickly.”
Councils particularly struggle with enforcing safety of councillors through a complaints system that is notoriously difficult to navigate and slow to fix things. NSW Police does not have a specific framework for dealing with threats to local officials, either.
“Women are going to councils all over the country [to ask for help] and the response completely differs depending on who she complains to, and if there’s a local police presence that is interested and resourced,” Heath said. “That is being weaponised by those who are trying to stoke hate.”
Bronnie Taylor, a former Nationals NSW cabinet minister who faced regular verbal abuse from serial Snowy Monaro Council pest Andrew Thaler, said more than a decade after she and others began experiencing problems with his abusive behaviour, nothing had happened. “We just feel so vulnerable,” she said. “Myself and so many go to the police and they tell you it’s really hard to get an AVO. [They say] ‘Are you sure you want to do that? Are you sure you want to take the stand?’
“There have been absolutely no consequences for him,” she said of Thaler’s repeated insulting and harassing of prominent women. “He’s been completely unchecked. It’s really incredible that people can’t get AVOs, they can’t get protected, and there is no legislative framework to stop this behaviour.”
A spokesperson for NSW Police said it had a “robust security plan in place to support all parliamentarians in NSW, with these arrangements frequently reviewed and updated as required”, but did not answer questions about support available for councillors. The City of Parramatta is implementing a stronger security presence at its council meetings following the incident.
In a statement, Valentino said his video outside Hamed’s house was about “raising questions about how public funds and resources are allocated” and was “legitimate civic scrutiny and accountability”. He said the encounter at the gym was part of an “ongoing, tense personal and political dispute” and that while “the language used in the heat of the moment was regrettable”, his anger was “primarily in regard to [Raffoul’s] brother”. “I do not like being intimidated and stood over,” he said. He did not provide evidence of this occurring.
There is no suggestion Valentino was involved in firebombing Hamed’s car. A 17-year-old boy was charged with hindering the discovery of evidence in relation to the incident and a police spokesperson said inquiries continued. Hamed, who did not nominate for the mayoralty at the September vote, said female councillors were weighing up “the wellbeing of their family against [their] commitment to public service”.
“A strong democracy depends on women being able to participate fully and safely. We need more kindness, less hostility,” she said.
Raffoul wants more to be done to protect female councillors. “I should be able to serve my community and do my job without fear or looking over my shoulder.”
With Ellie Busby
