Source : the age
Hello and welcome back to our live coverage of national and world news this Monday, October 26. Here’s what you need to know today.
- Helen Haines’ condition was downgraded from critical to serious but stable over the weekend after surgeons amputated both her legs last week. The Indi MP was struck by a car in an alleged intentional attack outside her office in north-east Victoria last Monday.
- New vision has emerged showing the moments before two police officers arrested the 43-year-old Wangaratta man accused of allegedly mowing down Haines. Vision obtained by Nine News shows Brendan Nugent in a previous altercation with police.
- Federal MPs will return to parliament today, with tribute speeches for Haines set to open parliamentary proceedings. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will deliver a tribute speech later this morning, and is expected to be followed by many of his colleagues.
- Parliament will also debate Labor’s proposed Digital Duty of Care laws, which will allow social media users to shut off their algorithms and sue big tech platforms for harm they experience online. Whether the bill will pass remains unclear as it faces significant backlash from tech companies and the US administration. The bill is also facing a Senate inquiry.
- And one in three households are going hungry as the cost-of-living crisis hits Australians, new research by Foodbank has found, while many people are reducing meal portions to make ends meet.
Fellow crossbencher Monique Ryan has also fought back tears while recounting Helen Haines’ adage that a woman’s place is in every room where decisions are made.
In Haines’ empty seat, the crossbench has placed an orange cockatoo, her campaign symbol.
“We have to protect all women, not just those in public life,” Ryan said.
Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie also paid tribute to the seriously injured MP.
After a short statement from Speaker Milton Dick, who said he could always rely on Haines when he had a tough day presiding over an unruly chamber, Community Strong MP Zali Steggall rose to her feet.
Here’s a taste of what Steggall had to say as she fought back tears:
Helen, I’ve had so many chats with you sitting in this chamber. You’re the matriarch of the crossbench, always a voice for respectful political debate. She’s advised me to amend a few questions over the years.
[Helen], we have heard your words loud and clear: kindness over hate. It’s time to diffuse the tension and consider how our words are being received by others in the community beyond this space.”
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles then shared an anecdote of how Haines “slipped away” from an AFL grand final viewing party in Canberra because she didn’t want to “rub [his] nose” in the fact that her team, the Richmond Tigers, had begun to decimate the Geelong Cats.
“I mean, who does that?” Marles asked. “For most of us, football culture is about rubbing people’s noses down.”
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor rose to his feet after the PM to say everyone was praying for Helen Haines’ swift recovery.
“My hope, our hope – the nation’s hope – is that you will be back here soon,” Taylor said.
“And when you resume your seat in this parliament. That will be a resounding moment for our democracy.
“I look forward to Helen returning to the chamber as soon as possible.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has just thanked all those who came to Helen Haines’ aid last week and secured the area until police arrived.
“They applied tourniquets, assisted paramedics, and provided invaluable assistance,” Albanese said.
The PM then went on to say:
The member for Indi, in all her decency, integrity, compassion, fear, and empathy, has always embodied the truth that there is more that unites us than divides us.
Her capacity to do it all with such heart and such unrelenting advocacy is, in its own way, a reminder that she has served in far tougher places than this.
As a former nurse and a midwife, her rich personal background is something that she has brought to this chamber. It is hard to think of anyone in this place with a more irrepressible twinkle in the eye, a twinkle that more than hints at a real inner strength.
The well wishes for seriously injured MP Helen Haines have begun in the House of Representatives.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was the first to speak. Watch live below.
Phil Haines, Helen Haines’ husband, is expected to be in parliament as MPs prepare to deliver their tributes to the MP in the chamber this morning.
Community Strong MP Zali Steggall said she was looking forward to seeing Phil.
“I’m looking forward to seeing Phil later today. Of course, Helen has been in critical condition, but we understand, now, [serious. So we’re all very much hoping for her recovery,” she told the ABC’s News Breakfast.
Haines remains in a serious but stable condition.
In Victoria, police are investigating after a bullet was left on the windscreen of the state’s emergency services minister.
It comes as the safety and security of elected officials remains a major topic of debate following the alleged attack on Helen Haines last Monday.
Paul Edbrooke was returning to his car in Frankston over the weekend when he found the large projectile with the word “RAT” engraved on one side, and his personal ID number from when he was a serving firefighter on the other.
“This is a new low in a pattern of threatening behaviour against politicians,” Edbrooke said in a statement.
Election results are being tallied in Brazil, where confusion about extended polling hours at the last minute forced counting to stop earlier this morning.
Brazil’s Supreme Court issued an extension of voting hours across the nation as some booths were closing for the day and while its electoral authorities began — and then suddenly paused — counting ballots in one of the most tightly contested elections in its history.
The order from Judge Cristiano Zanin came minutes after polls were due to close at 5pm Sunday (Brasilia time), and allowed voting to continue until 7pm. It followed requests from both candidates, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and challenger Flávio Bolsonaro.
The incumbent requested extensions nationwide over public transit problems in numerous states, including Sao Paulo — Brazil’s most populous — where 100 per cent of buses were supposed to run as per a weekday schedule but ran at 60 per cent, and Bahia, a key north-eastern stronghold for the leftist leader.
“In my political life, I pledge to act with honesty, respect and compassion,” a civility pledge, signed by Helen Haines two months ago, reads.
The pledge, created by independent organisation Compassion in Politics Australia, calls on elected officials to make the simple commitment.
Haines was the first parliamentarian to sign the pledge, which was inspired by the family of murdered British MP Jo Cox.
Amid an ongoing conversation about the need to restore decency and respect to Australian political life and following last week’s attack on Haines, crossbench members have encouraged MPs to sign the pledge.
Health Minister Mark Butler said this morning he would look at the pledge, while independent MP Kate Chaney has committed to signing it.
Greens leader David Shoebridge is also a signatory.
Opposition frontbencher James Paterson says a Coalition majority government in Victoria would send a signal that the establishment centre–right party can govern without the help of One Nation.
A Newspoll published today shows state Opposition Leader Jess Wilson moving well ahead of Labor. The Labor primary vote in Victoria dropped four points to 24 per cent, the Coalition’s up three to 33 per cent. One Nation was at 20 per cent, putting the Coalition in a solid position to win a majority of lower house seats.
“I think it really puts to bed this desperate Labor Party scare campaign about hung parliaments and minority governments and all this distraction,” Paterson told Nine’s Today show.
Paterson, who is close to Wilson and playing a role advising the Victorian opposition, brushed off a suggestion he would become an unofficial “deputy premier” of Victoria under a Wilson government.
“Very kind, Paul, but I’m just here in a supporting capacity as a Victorian who’s worried about the future of my state,” he said..
