Helen Haines attack live updates: Brendan Nugent facing three charges over alleged ‘intentional’ attack; MP for Indi loses leg with surgeons trying to save other

Federal MPs will be briefed today by intelligence agencies after the attack on Helen Haines.

Senior officers from the ALP, ASIO and Department of Home Affairs will lead the briefing in Parliament House.

The agencies will address threat assessments, security protocols, and reporting pathways for threats as MPs across the political spectrum express heightened anxiety following the attack.

The sister of a murdered UK MP Jo Cox has urged Australians to bring the political temperature down and said Australia must use the alleged attack on Helen Haines as a turning point.

Cox was murdered at the age of 41 in 2016. She was shot and stabbed multiple times by a far-right extremist.

Two more MPs or former MPs have been killed in the UK since Cox’s death. Former MP Ann Widdecombe was killed this year, and sitting MP David Amess was killed in 2021.

Kim Leadbeater is now the MP of the constituency formerly held by her sister. She said Australia had to seize this moment to unite against political violence.

“Maybe for Australia this is your moment to think about what your politics looks like and how we can bring people together [and] find common ground,” Leadbeater told ABC’s 7.30 last night.

“These things don’t happen in a vacuum … they are part of a wider culture in politics and society.”

Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek said she had received harrowing threats during her time in public office and revealed the measures she took to keep herself safe.

“I’ve changed my behaviour in some ways,” she told ABC’s 7.30 program last night. “I often, for example, don’t advertise street stalls on social media … I post photos after I’ve left an event, rather than if I’m at an event, if there’s no sense of security around.”

Plibersek said while there had “always been threats” against people in public office, social media had enabled threats to occur “on an industrial scale”.

“Yesterday, I posted something about Jacqui Lambie saying that I thought that the cartoon mocking her vaginal prolapse was in extremely poor taste, and 24 hours after I posted that, this afternoon, after this attack on Helen Haines, someone wrote under that post defending Jacqui Lambie, ‘she deserves to meet a LandCruiser’. I don’t know what kind of person does that,” she said.

“Years ago, I had someone slip a note under my front door at home, no stamp on it or anything. They’d obviously turned up in person, saying they hope my children die of painful cancers. I’ve had, I mean, I couldn’t even count the number of death threats, rape threats that I’ve had over the years.”

Hello and welcome back to our live coverage of Australia’s response to the attack on independent MP Helen Haines in Wangaratta on Monday afternoon. Here’s what we know today.

• Helen Haines’ alleged attacker Brendan Nugent has been charged with three offences as the independent MP continues to fight for her life in hospital following what has been labelled by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as a deliberate attack.
• The member for Indi underwent emergency surgery. She lost a leg and surgeons are trying to save the other.
• More details emerged yesterday about Nugent’s background. The 43-year-old clashed with neighbours in the nearby town of Tarrawingee, and local officers had visited his property over their complaints in the months before the attack.
• Nugent’s family released a statement yesterday saying they were devastated by the attack on Haines, whom they described as their “close friend of more than 20 years”.