A man has been charged with threatening an Australian lawmaker’s staff with nunchucks days after another legislator was critically injured when a man repeatedly hit her with a car MELBOURNE, Australia -- A man has been charged with threatening an Australian lawmaker’s staff with nunchucks, police said Thursday, days after another legislator was critically injured when a man repeatedly hit her with a car. The incidents are heightening concerns about female politicians’ safety and raising concerns about security in a country where lawmakers are highly accessible to the public. Police say that a 56-year-old man entered Western Australian state government minister Hannah Beazley’s electorate office in suburban Perth on Wednesday, brandishing nunchucks and making verbal threats.
Beazley wasn't in the office at the time. Nunchucks are a weapon used in martial arts consisting of two sticks or rods connected by a rope or chain. The man was detained and charged with being armed in a way that may cause fear and with threatening to perform an unlawful act.
He spent the night in police custody and will appear in a Perth court later Thursday, police said. There was no allegation the man’s behavior was connected to the driver who hit federal lawmaker Helen Haines with his car in the east coast state of Victoria on Monday. Haines' alleged attacker, Brendan Nugent, appeared in a court on Wednesday charged with intentionally causing serious injury, dangerous driving causing serious injury and causing harm to a federal official.
He did not enter pleas and remains in custody. Police are still searching for a motive. Haines, a 65-year-old independent lawmaker, remained in critical condition on Thursday in a Melbourne hospital where surgeons have amputated both her legs, a health department statement said.
Both the Haines and Beazley incidents have raised concerns about the safety of female politicians, who account for a growing proportion of lawmakers in Australian parliaments. Just under 50% of federal lawmakers and a majority of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Cabinet are women. Australian lawmakers are some of the most accessible in the world and political violence has traditionally been rare.
But there are fears that increasingly toxic public debate driven by social media creates additional risks for elected women. Albanese said the fact that the threat to Beazley came so soon after the alleged attack on Haines was “just heartbreaking.” Beazley is the daughter of Albanese's former federal colleague, Kim Beazley. Security agencies addressed misogynistic threats directed at them.
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