New research has found a "disturbing" rise in abuse and threats of violence towards New Zealand's politicians.
The study, undertaken by the University of Otago, investigated harassment and violence towards MPs during the COVID-19 pandemic and the recovery era.
It found 98 percent of MPs who took part in the study experienced harassment ranging from communications to physical violence.
"I think that we're showing that we do have a problem here," said Justin Barry-Walsh, a forensic psychiatrist and co-author of the research.
"It's particularly a problem for women MPs but it's clearly a problem for all MPs - we found an increase in overall harassment - and we found greater evidence of harm," Dr Barry-Walsh told AM.
Social media attacks were experienced by 96 percent of the 54 MPs who took part in the research.
Forty percent of those attacks included threats of physical violence and 14 percent sexual violence.
Other social media threats were towards MPs' family members (19 percent) and staff (12 percent), said the report.
"A group of people were opposed to a policy I proposed as minister and they confronted me at a meeting in my hometown. Following the meeting I received death threats," one MP was quoted as saying in the report.
"The police were involved and I had to use a GPS tracker 24/7... my children were living at home and they were distressed about this, and my partner didn't want me going anywhere on my own. I had difficulties sleeping for a while."
Dr Barry-Walsh said while the COVID-19 pandemic was a contributor to the rise in abuse, there were other factors at play as well.
"We know that there'd been an increase in harassment through social media prior to COVID in the UK - there's no reason to think it hadn't happened here as well. In fact, our own experience working in that space suggests that it had.
"A very strong theme that ran through our research for women is the rise in misogyny and misogynistic abuse, and the harm it creates - some of what was being said to them was appalling.
"Women experience five times more threats to their family than men do, they experience sexist and sexualised comments and abuse, and they experience harms from those."
The research was published in the Frontiers in Psychiatry journal.
