After then-Prime Minister Julia Gillard hand-picked Peris in January to head the centre-left Labor Party‘s Senate ticket in the Northern Territory — an almost unbeatable position that virtually assured her place in Australian political history — she was bombarded with hate letters and emails that were so extreme she passed them to police.

„It‘s not a nice feeling to be judged and looked down upon because of the colour of your skin,“ Peris said Sunday. „I had a string of letters and emails sent to me and they were horrific. And my husband was really, really upset.“