The alleged attack on independent MP Helen Haines shows that political hate speech can have real-world fallout, according to her colleague and friend, former independent MP for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel.
Haines, the independent federal member for Indi, remains in a critical condition after what is believed to be a targeted attack near her electorate office in Wangaratta, Victoria, on Monday morning. She had been chatting with locals at a dog park before the incident.
A friend's warning that became reality
Daniel, a three-time ABC foreign correspondent, wrote that she had previously warned, after a torrid campaign involving doxing, abuse and threats, that "one of us is going to get hurt eventually". She said she never expected that to become reality on a street in Wangaratta.
"It is sickening to have been right, and to see my friend the target," she wrote. "I knew one of us could get hurt eventually. I never thought it would be my friend Helen."
Political climate and shared responsibility
Daniel described Haines as "arguably the best of all of us, not just as a politician but a person", noting that some community independents have T-shirts that say, "What would Helen do?" — a gift from Dr Monique Ryan, the member for Kooyong.
She said the apparent spillover of online behaviour into the real world has been egged on by global political influences, the fracturing caused by Covid, endemic mental health issues, isolation, the widening wealth gap, and outright anger and threats. As Women for Election recently reported, these are outsized risks for women in politics.
A call for action and accountability
Daniel dismissed suggestions that politically motivated violence is an exclusively international phenomenon, saying Trumpism, social media, populism and extremism are global influences, and "our island status does not protect us".
She called for social media to be managed with an enforceable duty of care, including transparency around how destructive algorithms deploy fake news, manipulate public opinion, damage mental health and compound mental illness. She also said everyone else must take a hard look at what they have done or not done.
"We are all responsible," Daniel wrote. "So, what are we all going to do about it, together?"
