It’s a universal truth of politics that no foul deed goes unexploited. So it is going with the horrific attempted murder of independent federal MP Helen Haines, on Monday.
Haines, 65, represents the federal seat of Indi, in north-east Victoria, stretching from the foot of Victoria’s high country, to the border with NSW at the Murray River. It’s both old cattle country and the former stamping-ground of the Kelly gang and a target for tree-changers. Haines has represented the area since 2019, succeeding another independent, Cathy McGowan. Before that, the seat had been held by the coalition parties since 1931.
Late Monday, Haines was returning to her electorate office when she was rammed by a white Toyota LandCruiser. Witnesses say the car did a u-turn as Haines was retrieving items from the boot of her car. The attacker then allegedly reversed and hit her a second time. Bystanders intervened, including one who sat in front of the car and another, local barber Ricky Jefferies, who hauled the attacker from his car, also wresting a knife from his pocket.
Haines remains in a critical condition after undergoing surgery at Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital. It has been reported that she has lost a leg.
The attacker has been arrested and named as Brendan Nugent, 43, from nearby Tarrawingee. However, Nugent is yet to be formally interviewed by police, as he was said to be too ‘substance-impaired’: under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett, who famously denied a religious motive in the Bondi Islamic terror attack, said the attack is “is an isolated incident and there are no known threats connected to this matter”.
Nugent, who describes himself on social media as a “plant person” and vegan, is virulently anti-Israel and climate activist and environmentalist who protested logging in the local forest. The Save Our Strathbogie Forest group published at least one blog entry credited to “SOSF member Brendan Nugent”, in 2019. A longer fact sheet from the same group credits “Brendan Nugent” as “a Master of Forest Ecosystem Science, The University of Melbourne, Creswick Campus (Victorian School of Forestry); he is also a Committee Member of the Save Our Strathbogie Forest group.”
Save our Strathbogie Forest group chair Bertram Lobert has confirmed that Nugent was an active member. Lobert describes the attacker as “an intensely intelligent man... who cared about the environment”.
An unnamed source claimed the anti-logging activism lured him into “darker things”. What those “darker things” might be was unspecified, but even as the October 7 attacks were still underway, a social media account bearing Nugent’s name was praising the “Gaza Resistance” for “breaking apart the Israeli-created mass prison in the Strip”. From then on, the account endlessly attacked Israel, and repeated anti-Israel propaganda, such as accusations of rape by the IDF and the ‘genocide’ lie. An hour later, it reposted British journalist Matt Kennard’s praise for “armed struggle by the Palestinian resistance against the occupier”. It also quoted directly from Hamas propaganda, celebrating October 7 as “the finest displays of bravery and heroism in confronting the Israeli murder machine”.
The account also posted memes supporting the Houthi attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf and supported bringing Iraqis to Australia as ‘refugees’.
Despite immediate efforts by many leftists to link the attack to One Nation, the account makes no mention of One Nation at all. Its sole mention of Pauline Hanson was a mocking reference in 2015. In 2017, the account attacked then-Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi, now One Nation leader in South Australia, for “importing radical alt-right, anti-worker Americanism”. It also attacked now One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce.
The account linked to his name is followed directly by MP Helen Haines herself, as well as Greens Senator David Shoebridge, and the Animal Justice Party. Shoebridge unfollowed the account immediately after the attack.
The account seemed to broadly support Haines, replying directly to her own account multiple times. During the 2019 federal election campaign, it attacked “LNP funded anti-independent propaganda” tailored to Indi voters. Later that year, it praised her as “a politician who takes climate change seriously”.
In 2020, the account replied to Haines’s announcement of federal financial support for the seat’s softwood timber industry, asking what support was given.
Current polling indicates that Haines is under direct threat from One Nation in her seat. Haines’s own official car is orange: the colour of One Nation’s branding.
Yet, immediately following the attack, almost the entire left political establishment piled on to exploit it for their own agendas. PM Anthony Albanese strutted to the podium, claiming it validated his supposed efforts to ‘tone things down’. This, from the PM who urged his MPs to “smash” Pauline Hanson, and who said nothing when ‘school protests’ led by violent far-leftists Socialist Alternative, chanted to “kill” Hanson.
Victorian Premier Ben Carroll and Canberra green-left independent David Pocock, formerly part of billionaire Simon Holmes à Court’s ‘Climate 200’ group, both immediately blamed social media. Pocock particularly questioned whether social media “is actually compatible with a thriving democracy”. Another Climate 200-backed ‘Teal independent’, Zali Steggall, blamed “radio shock jocks”.
Count down to the Albanese government using the attack to justify its internet censorship bill – if not to try and expand its censorship regime.
In the meantime, all sensible people can do is wish Helen Haines a speedy recover and emphatically reject political violence – no matter who it’s directed at or from where.
