As increasingly frequent acts of violence against politicians have shocked the globe in recent years, Australia has watched on with a contradictory feeling: that attacks like that could not happen here, and that it was only a matter of time until they did. Australians will tell you this is a largely peaceful society with a comparatively civil public discourse. Violence targeting politicians has been rare, the bungled assassination of Labor leader Arthur Calwell in 1966 now a distant and fleeting memory.
But MPs and public figures – backed by experts – have been warning of a volcano of threats against them as social cohesion cracks, polarisation intensifies and the tone of debate grows hotter. And on Monday, their worst fears appear to have been realised. Independent MP Helen Haines was struck by a car and severely injured outside her office in the regional Victorian town of Wangaratta.
Police say a 43-year-old man was arrested at the scene, and a knife seized, but they have not said Haines was hit deliberately. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, however, swiftly described the incident as an apparent attack. He was briefed by federal police – whose counter terror squad is helping state officers investigate – and told the national broadcaster: "This wasn't an accident.
There was a deliberate act, it would appear." Though he stressed no motive had been confirmed, Albanese earlier got emotional as he talked about the growing fear amongst MPs that they would end up targets. Australian MP critically injured after being hit by car in apparent attack What we know about apparent attack on Australian MP hit by car Earlier this year Albanese himself was evacuated from his official residence over a bomb threat. As of August, about 20 cases in which people were accused of making violent threats against him were winding their way through courts around the country.
In recent years, politicians here have been mailed bullets. Female MPs – and in some cases their children – have been threatened with sexual violence. A Jewish MP's office has been firebombed, a Sydney mayor's car has been torched and countless other politicians have had their workplaces vandalised.
Just last week Small Business Minister Anne Aly said she had received a wave of death threats after a politician from the opposition said she should be "shamed and stoned in the square" over a tax policy. According to government statistics, there were 1,067 reports of "harassing and threatening behaviour" against "high office holders" in the year to June: an increase on last year. "We tend to bury our head in the sand and say, 'Not here', but this has been happening now for well over a decade," Josh Roose, a Deakin University Professor on violent extremism, tells the BBC.
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