The impact of independent MP Helen Haines\u2019s absence from federal parliament was immense this week. Her colleagues returned to Canberra mulling over what it means for our democracy and their role in it as elected representatives.<\/p>\n
The House of Representatives suspended the normal business of the day on Monday to debate a motion of the prime minister\u2019s expressing solidarity with their injured colleague and her family and gratitude for the swift action of bystanders, first responders and health professionals.<\/p>\n
Members on the cross bench were inconsolable as newer MPs revealed in their speeches that Haines was a leader and a mentor to most of them.<\/p>\n
No one, least of all the member for Mackellar, Sophie Scamps, who has worked as a hospital emergency department doctor, found it easy to comprehend the life-changing challenges their colleague faces.<\/p>\n
Scamps gave voice to what many were struggling to accept. She said, \u201cWhile the relief is immense that your heart and mind are intact \u2013 the most beautiful part of you \u2013 please also know that we do mourn the loss of your legs.\u201d<\/p>\n
This cruel event in Wangaratta could not be seen in isolation from the fact that the victim was a serving member of the federal parliament, no matter what the police investigation into the alleged attack unearths. The Australian Federal Police are not ruling out mental health issues for the driver of the car that struck Haines.<\/p>\n
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke told the House that in his role he assesses the different risk factors for all members of parliament. \u201cHelen was so far down the list,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The prime minister told his party room on Tuesday that \u201clast week was a turning point, and people have been putting up with this growing threat environment for too long\u201d.<\/p>\n
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett revealed in a Senate estimates hearing just how exponential this growth has been. She said the AFP had received nearly 800 security complaints relating to politicians in the first six months of the year.<\/p>\n
Barrett said 50 per cent of the threats were directed at men and 47 per cent at women, and that the latter often had a sexual violence component. Three per cent were more generic against politicians.<\/p>\n
Albanese admitted more can and should be done. He understood all members of parliament wanted to feel safe in their communities and have better security at their offices and homes. The prime minister said a review of security arrangements would be fast-tracked, and he was sympathetic to a number of options that had been raised with him, including duress alarms.<\/p>\n
The independent member for Bradfield, Nicolette Boele, with the support of the Labor benches but not the Coalition, led a matter of public importance debate on \u201cthe urgent need to prevent political violence and foster constructive and respectful public discourse\u201d.<\/p>\n
Boele also picked up on the \u201cturning point for our country\u201d. She said the story of Helen Haines should ensure \u201cwe chart a new course towards civility in politics, towards respectful disagreement and towards collaborative and constructive governance where people come first, not corporate profits\u201d.<\/p>\n
Boele quoted Haines\u2019s husband, Phil. As he put it, \u201cThere is a rage boiling in the hearts of too many Australians, but you can choose to tame it or inflame it and it\u2019s for all of us to choose which one.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the ABC\u2019s Insiders the AFP commissioner gave weight to this challenge. Barrett said there is a direct link between politicians\u2019 rhetoric and threats and abuse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do see where there is particular political conflict or discourse occurring \u2026 it does have a direct correlation to what we see in terms of threats and abuse, and sometimes it\u2019s very immediate.\u201d<\/p>\n
The commissioner was asked about a report that surfaced on Sunday showing Pauline Hanson\u2019s Please Explain cartoon series depicting politicians, including the prime minister, being run down by cars and buses.<\/p>\n
Barrett said there was \u201ca reaction amongst the community\u201d to material such as these cartoons.<\/p>\n
In two cartoons, the popular ABC children\u2019s character Bluey is depicted as a car-target victim as well as a vengeful driver.<\/p>\n
Midweek, the ABC reported a One Nation colouring book was given to children at the Mount Gambier show depicting Bluey being robbed at knifepoint.<\/p>\n
ABC managing director Hugh Marks told Senate estimates this use of Bluey was \u201cshocking and disrespectful\u201d and a \u201cblatant use of intellectual property\u201d.\u00a0 One Nation is facing demands the cartoons be taken down and possible legal action.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Krissy Barrett said the AFP had received nearly 800 security complaints relating to politicians in the first six months of the year. Barrett said 50 per cent of threats were directed at men and 47 per cent at women, and that the latter often had a sexual violence component.<\/p>\n
Pauline Hanson refused to answer questions about the cartoons at a midweek doorstop. She pulled out of a scheduled interview with News24\u2019s political editor Andrew Clennell. The reason given was that Clennell was acting \u201clike a dick\u201d again.<\/p>\n
The Hanson doorstop was called on the day the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the latest inflation figures. The underlying number of 3.7 per cent is well outside the Reserve Bank\u2019s target range of 2-3\u00a0per cent and market speculation reflects an 85 per cent chance that interest rates will rise again on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Hanson wanted to sell her Super Pay Boost policy, giving Australians access to 3\u00a0per cent of their compulsory superannuation payments. She says that it is to help them \u201cpay the\u00a0rent\u201d.<\/p>\n
Focus group research for the Labor Party suggests voters are very sceptical of the policy, with a female voter in Western Australia saying the policy \u201cmay offer some relief now but I believe this will be detrimental in the future\u201d.<\/p>\n
Other responses indicated support for One Nation is soft, and that it is seen more as a vehicle for protest rather than a viable party of government.<\/p>\n
A male voter in New South Wales said he didn\u2019t think Hanson had \u201cwell thought through policies\u201d and he was \u201cnot sure she has experience in governing formally in government\u201d. He said this could mean her\u00a0government would be unstable and \u201cTrump like\u201d.<\/p>\n
An unexpected fallout of Monday\u2019s parliamentary statements was the contrast in responses from Opposition Leader Angus Taylor and his assumed rival for the Liberal leadership, Andrew Hastie.<\/p>\n
Taylor, clearly with the AFP chief\u2019s interview in his sights, said \u201csome\u201d suggest there is a \u201ccausal connection between robust parliamentary debate and political violence\u201d. Taylor added, \u201cI disagree with this view.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hastie, on the other hand, told the House, \u201cIt only takes one person with a twisted mind or perverted sense of reality to strike out \u2026 because they judge that an online assassination must be followed up with a real-life assassination.\u201d<\/p>\n
The back bench was riveted on Hastie as he concluded. \u201cSo what we say here and online shapes the political culture,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can all do better and we should strive to do better. So let\u2019s play the ball, not the person, and leave the nasty personal politics of MAGA in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hastie says he won\u2019t be challenging Taylor before the next election and expects the member for Hume to lead the Liberals at the poll. This does not alter the fact that Hastie\u2019s performance, not only on Monday but generally in the media, is impressing his colleagues more than Taylor\u2019s. What may well save Taylor\u2019s bacon is that \u2013 as one Liberal frontbencher puts it \u2013 \u201cthe Abbott\u2013Credlin\u2013Rinehart axis would not cop Hastie as leader\u201d.<\/p>\n
Tony Abbott is a very active federal Liberal Party president. His former chief of staff, Peta Credlin, is now an influential News24 commentator, among conservatives and One Nation supporters. Gina Rinehart, meanwhile, has used her considerable wealth to push her causes, including supporting accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith, against whom Hastie was forced to testify\u00a0
in a civil trial.<\/p>\n
Warringah independent Zali Steggall says Taylor \u201cdidn\u2019t read the room\u201d on Monday. His tin ear was on display elsewhere in Parliament House on the same day, when he called a news conference to announce putative Coalition savings of $31 billion.<\/p>\n
The targets are Labor\u2019s renewable energy projects, business incentives, electric vehicle subsidies and social housing.<\/p>\n
Taylor, egged on by the coal lobby in the Nationals, misjudges that climate action is electorally toxic. He is intent on ignoring former treasurer Josh Frydenberg\u2019s warning that there is \u201cno goat track\u201d via the regions back to power and certainly not one that ignores seats now held by the urban teal independents.<\/p>\n
The same mindset has Taylor rejecting the Australia\u2013European Union Free Trade Agreement, disingenuously claiming it is not giving \u201cmeaningful access\u201d to critical industries such as dairy and red meat.<\/p>\n
Trade Minister Don Farrell says the dairy industry will see all tariffs effectively eliminated, while market access for beef is going up 700 per cent and for sheep meat by 430 per cent. It\u2019s a much more generous deal than the one the Nationals copped when the Howard government agreed to the Australia\u2013United States Free Trade Agreement all those years ago.<\/p>\n
The real sticking point for Taylor is the turning of the trade deal into a \u201cclimate agreement to make the nationally determined contributions under the Paris agreement binding\u201d. At the news conference, he melodramatically added, \u201cI mean, seriously?\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes, seriously. Not only would a rejection of the deal rob Australian exporters of billions of dollars, but should the Liberals ever return to power and ditch the Paris goals, they would almost certainly open Australia to climate tariffs to access the huge European market.<\/p>\n
Greens leader David Shoebridge says it is further proof Taylor and the Liberals are hostage to the One Nation agenda. It\u2019s hard to see it any other way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The impact of independent MP Helen Haines\u2019s absence from federal parliament was immense this week. Her colleagues returned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":947170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-947169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=947169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}