With ashen faces, a shocked Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke confirmed to the nation late on Monday that the independent member for the federal seat of Indi, Helen Haines, had been attacked and critically injured.
The assault on the much-respected MP has gripped the country, igniting intense discussion over the nature of our democratic politics and triggering fevered speculation about possible motives of the man who has been charged.
Albanese cautioned against jumping to conclusions and at time of writing there had been nothing from the investigation that throws further light on why the individual behind the wheel reportedly did a U-turn when he noticed Haines loading things into the back of her vehicle.
At that initial news conference, Burke raised the safety of politicians when he revealed that in the 2024/25 financial year there were 951 reports of “harassing and threatening behaviour” against various high office holders. He said in the past financial year “that 951 has gone to 1067”.
During the week, cabinet ministers Tanya Plibersek and Clare O’Neil revealed they had been regular targets of threats, as did the independent MP Monique Ryan. Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie said the initiative for his round-the-clock protection detail came from Burke after his appearance as a subpoenaed witness in the Ben Roberts-Smith war crimes litigation unleashed a torrent of death threats.
Albanese has been urging a “lowering of the temperature” in political discourse since he received early briefings from our security agencies on the vulnerability of politicians.
In interviews during the week, Albanese said Haines “represents the very best in our political representatives”. He said she was kind and compassionate, “a person of integrity totally committed to strongly representing the interests of her regional Victorian community”.
In a Melbourne speech on Tuesday, the prime minister said he was asked how people can show their support. “My best response is: be like Helen.”
Senior politicians calling for a “kinder, gentler” approach to politics at times of personal tragedies isn’t new. Credit must be given to former Liberal Speaker Tony Smith, and current Labor Speaker Milton Dick, for creating a less abusive approach to Question Time in the past decade. It is, however, not enough.
The proverb “The path to hell is paved with good intentions” is apt if what we have seen over the past three decades or so is anything to go by.
There is not even lip-service to good intentions on so many successful social media platforms. They leverage outrage and provide what has been called “angertainment”.
There are no good intentions here, just a business model that is proving to be extremely profitable. Albanese says this has contributed to politics being far more aggressive than it used to be.
That this model is enthusiastically taken up by struggling mainstream mastheads, radio stations and pay TV does nothing for the safety of elected leaders.
The quest for political advantage will inevitably lead to overreach. It is heartening to hear the prime minister and the leader of the opposition, Angus Taylor, reacting to the Haines outrage in a way that acknowledges hyperbole can have lethal consequences.
Albanese nailed an essential difference between the sort of political contest he aspires to and that applied by United States President Donald Trump.
On ABC Radio he said you can disagree with someone without challenging their patriotism. He told Raf Epstein he thought “Angus Taylor loves Australia” and Matt Canavan, the Nationals’ leader, “loves Australia”. He said he had spoken to both of them after the attack on Helen Haines.
“Let’s argue about ideas,” Albanese said, “without questioning people’s motives or identity or faith.” He said there’s enough cruelty, hatred and violence in the world without politicians in Australia adding to it.
In the US, Trump has called a Democratic candidate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, a “jihadist”. In Texas, where the Republicans are facing a strong challenge from Democrat James Talarico, Trump told a rally the people “are not going to let weak, gutless, self-hating, transgender-promoting freak shows destroy everything we’ve built”.
The quest for political advantage will inevitably lead to overreach. It is heartening to hear the prime minister and the leader of the opposition, Angus Taylor, reacting to the Haines outrage in a way that acknowledges hyperbole can have lethal consequences.
The coarsening of political discourse under Trump has plumbed new depths. This ugly politics is proving a tempting template for politicians everywhere, especially those inspired by his Make America Great Again rhetoric.
Trump’s success in playing to irrational xenophobic prejudices, his personal, racist and misogynistic attacks on his political opponents, making them a target of fear and contempt, is proving too beguiling to ignore.
One Nation has ventured into this space with gusto and has even been praised for the effective way in which it has utilised online opportunities.
The least impressed is Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie, himself a target of the Pauline Hanson-produced cartoon series Please Explain. It portrayed him as “a traitor” repeatedly in one episode, only to draw the ire of Senator Jacqui Lambie and others.
Lambie, also a veteran, lashed Hanson as a “bloody coward” and demanded she take the cartoon down. The One Nation leader refused, brushing off the call with, “It’s a satirical cartoon, for Christ’s sake.”
Then it was Hastie’s turn to come to Lambie’s defence. He attacked One Nation after a new cartoon mocked the senator’s medical condition, linked to her military service. It features a Lambie caricature complaining she can’t laugh “because of my prolapsed vagina”.
Hastie told Politico that Australian women should take note of “One Nation’s political character”. He said it was “a cheap, nasty and vulgar joke” at the expense of Senator Lambie.
“This is the MAGA-style politics we can expect from One Nation if they are elected to government.”
Lambie was even stronger in her reaction. She said if people want to watch these cartoons “be my guest, if you want more hatred, more spitefulness in your life”.
The Tasmanian independent told Radio National Breakfast: “Decent leaders don’t stir up hatred, pushing us towards bloody anarchy, because that’s exactly what she is doing.”
Hanson, after trying the “get over it, it’s satire” defence, crumbled under sustained criticism. None was more significant than that from RSL Australia president Peter Tinley.
Tinley said no veteran should have their health used as a punchline. “Turning that into a running joke isn’t satire; it’s offensive and cruel. The RSL will always stand with veterans, and we stand with Senator Lambie.”
Hanson and her treasury spokesman, Barnaby Joyce, offered the extraordinary explanation that they hadn’t seen the cartoon – which Hanson vouches for as producer – before it was published.
Hanson said she’s spoken to the creator of the video, Mark Nicholson, and asked him to change it because “it wasn’t done as tastefully as it could have been”. How it could be done more tastefully defies the imagination.
The Please Explain cartoon series, commissioned by One Nation’s thrilled national director, James Ashby, racks up an average 500,000 views per episode.
Hanson’s refusal to take responsibility for the series is a shabby example of the sort of duckshoving she despises in other politicians.
Nicholson, One Nation’s lead candidate in the Victorian Upper House election, said he really didn’t care about the political implications of the cartoon. He revels in confronting the norms of our democratic politics.
Nicholson disgraced himself at One Nation’s Victorian campaign launch by saying former premiers Daniel Andrews and Jacinta Allan would be in prison by Christmas, though neither leader has been charged with or convicted of any criminal offence.
The line is straight out of the Trump playbook, fantasising about a weaponising of the agencies of criminal justice in Victoria to target opponents.
In a week when the nation is reeling after the Haines attack, Hanson seized an opportunity to lash the Prime Minister’s Office for issuing a “dirt file” on the Indi independent as if it happened yesterday.
This was a wilful distortion, peddled by an online right-wing tabloid. It mischaracterises a dispute between the prime minister and Haines over community grants, in which a fact sheet was circulated putting the prime minister’s rebuttal of Haines’s claims that he was “pork-barrelling”.
Background briefings for the press gallery are stock in trade, particularly for the major parties. One Nation tends to reserve its scoops for its News24 after-dark friends.
The PMO did point out that before last year’s election, Haines had requested $845 million for projects in her electorate, just as the Coalition had made $1.64 billion worth of commitments to electorates across the nation during the campaign. The PMO was strident in its response that it wasn’t going to put up with “nonsense and hypocrisy” from its opponents.
When asked about the story midweek, Albanese had no criticism of Haines. He said she was “a strong advocate for her community and she advocates for funding”.
The fact that Haines, as an independent, would criticise the incumbent Labor government on her electorate’s behalf shows political nous – something Albanese said he would expect.