“His name is Phil. He’s gorgeous”.
Those are the first words Helen Haines uttered when this masthead asked her three years ago about her husband, a man who on Wednesday brought the nation to tears as he calmly told the media that his wife’s second leg had been amputated.
Standing resolutely in Melbourne’s Alfred hospital, flanked by Australia’s Governor-General Sam Mostyn, Phil began by thanking the gathered journalists for being there.
“Normally, it would be Helen up in front of the media speaking, and she’s pretty good at that. Mostly, I would be to one side watching and listening. I hope I picked up a few tips from what Helen has done over here. So, thank you for being here,” he told the unfamiliar crowd.
“My name is Phil Haines. I’ve been married to Helen for almost 40 years. In fact, next month we celebrate our 40th anniversary. I’m here today to give you an update about Helen’s health on behalf of my family, our three children, their partners, and our two gorgeous grandchildren.”
His loving tribute to his wife at his family’s most difficult hour on Thursday was praised by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who called Phil’s address to the nation “remarkable”, and said he had shown extraordinary “resilience and strength”.
“He is showing extraordinary bravery. I thought it was a remarkable press conference yesterday,” Albanese told ABC radio in Sydney.
“He spoke with such love about Helen’s great characteristics of her heart, which is enormous, and her brain, which of course is also extraordinary. He spoke with such love.”
Helen first met her “sweetheart” while share housing in the Melbourne suburb of North Carlton. The future MP was 26 years old, a student of nursing and midwifery. Her “handsome”, soon-to-be husband was an agricultural scientist freshly returned from an aid project in Ethiopia. For Helen, it was “a kind of love at first sight”.
“He was friends with the people I lived with. And, you know, we locked eyes across a crowded room,” she said of their first glance in 1986. They met in March and were married by November.
In her words, Phil quickly “lured” her to the north-east Victorian town of Chiltern, one of the many country hamlets that dot the federal electorate of Indi which she has represented since 2019.
It was there that Helen’s husband was quietly influential in setting the ball rolling for the community independent movement which upended federal politics over the past decade.
While Helen, alongside her predecessor Cathy McGowan, are the faces of the movement’s rural force – and arguably the catalysts for the teal wave of 2022 – it was Phil who sat among 12 others at a fateful kitchen-table conversation in 2013 and said something about politics in the area needing to change. He went on to help manage McGowan’s campaigns that year and again in 2016.
When McGowan decided to retire, it was Phil who convinced his wife to take up the mantle.
“Phil was asking various people if they’d be interested in running. He’d come home and I’d say: ‘How did you get on? You found anyone?’ And he’d say: ‘No … but I know the perfect person.’
Helen went on to win at the 2019 election, and as she delivered her first speech to the House of Representatives, her husband looked down from the gallery.
“To that ag scientist from Rutherglen, Phil Haines ... who has always believed I could do things I never thought I could. No one could ask for a more loving soulmate,” Helen said at the time.
As Phil praised his wife’s great strengths, her heart and her mind, his eyes welled up. He looked ready to leave the podium but came back to introduce the Governor-General Sam Mostyn, revealing he had asked her to come and stand with him.
“Helen has the most incredible respect and affection for our governor-general,” he said as the two stood arm-in-arm. He also introduced his cousin Julie, a nurse in Wangaratta, as his support person, whose children grew up alongside the Haines’ children.
“Her compassion, her sage and composed advice has been great for our family,” he said.
Mostyn, who had regularly worked with Haines on projects about democracy, thanked everyone who had cared for the MP and said she was keeping King Charles III informed.
Addressing Phil directly, Mostyn said: “Everything that she has always done in her life, particularly in the 40 years her beautiful relationship with you, the children and grandchildren, say so much about that great love.
“I hope that as Australians, we can now reflect thoughtfully on what has happened, and can recommit all ourselves to the care, kindness, and respect that I know so deeply embedded in the Australian character. We have to stand by Helen the next few days, day by day. We’ve got to hope that that beautiful heart, that beautiful mind, will be strengthened every day by our support and our commitment to be more like Helen as part of this great democracy.”
In an interview with News24, the governor-general revealed that the last time she saw Haines, at a bushfire recovery hub in the town of Euroa, the two women embraced as they discussed how to improve public debate.
“And as we were leaving, because I’ve known Helen and I’ve admired her and her style, we started talking about this very issue.
“About what needs to be done, how would we have the conversation nationally about civility, respect for people who do stand for public office?”
The morning after her landmark address to the nation, Mostyn had to reveal her official Instagram account attracted angry posts overnight.
“I was just saddened this morning to see some of the comments on my own Instagram page, in capitals with expletives, once again questioning the very nature of what it is that I do,” she told the ABC.