The Motive Is Not Yet Known

Helen Haines, the independent member for Indi, was standing at the boot of her car on Murphy Street in Wangaratta on Monday afternoon, 19 October, when a white Toyota LandCruiser struck her outside her electorate office. She is 65. She was treated at Wangaratta’s hospital and flown to The Alfred in Melbourne, arriving at about 7.30pm, according to The Conversation, and the ABC reported that she was undergoing emergency surgery for severe injuries to her lower body. Victoria Police describe her injuries as critical.

A 43-year-old man from Tarrawingee, near Wangaratta, was stopped at the scene by a member of the public and taken into custody, police said. A knife was found in the vehicle. By Monday night in Australia, no charge had been announced.

What police have said

The police account is more careful than the political one. The Victoria Police statement, as quoted by The Conversation, said that “at this stage, police are investigating as to whether this was an intentional act” and that “it is not known yet if the parties are known to each other.” Detectives from the Major Collision Investigation Unit are investigating, the ABC reported. Acting Superintendent Ashley Mason described the scene as “quite dynamic” and said police had no intelligence of “any further or ongoing threat to any other person or the broader community.”

The times differ slightly between outlets. Police gave the time as about 3.30pm, per the ABC; The Conversation puts it at 3.35pm. The ABC also reported that the driver is understood to be known to police and will undergo a mental health assessment. That detail appears in the ABC’s report alone among the sources read for this piece, and it is not a finding about motive.

What the prime minister said

Anthony Albanese and the Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke, held a news conference in Sydney at 7pm. “A suspect is in custody. The Australian Federal Police, Victorian Police, and ASIO are working together on this. The Joint Counter Terrorism Team has been activated, but the motive is not known,” Mr Albanese said, according to The Conversation. “It is too early in this investigation for me to provide you with details of what the motivation is behind this attack.”

He went further on intent. “This wasn’t an accident. There was a deliberate act,” he told the ABC, as reported by Al Jazeera. He said the counter-terrorism team would be “going through their forensic work, trying to establish a motivation,” and that interviews would take place with the person concerned.

Two statements doing different work

The two accounts are not in conflict, but they answer different questions. The prime minister’s sentence is about what happened at the kerb. The activation of the Joint Counter Terrorism Team, which, in Mr Albanese’s description, has the Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police and the intelligence agency ASIO working together, is a decision about who investigates, taken before anyone knows why. Neither is an allegation. An allegation arrives with a charge, and the charge, when it is laid, will name the offence the prosecution says was committed. Until then the police statement is the operative one: an investigation into whether the act was intentional.

Mr Burke gave the background figures. In the year before last there were 951 reports of harassing and threatening behaviour against high office holders, he said, and in the more recent financial year there were 1,067, The Conversation reported. Mr Albanese said he did not personally know of a specific threat against Ms Haines, “but what we do know is that the temperature has increased in recent times.”

The response across the parties was immediate. Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said he and the prime minister were “united in our view that political violence must never be accepted as part of public life”, and, as quoted by the ABC, that “our nation cannot become a place where violent attacks are normalised.” The Victorian premier, Ben Carroll, said he was “deeply appalled by this violent attack.” Pauline Hanson of One Nation said members of parliament and their staff “must be able to serve their communities without fearing for their safety.” Ms Haines’s family thanked bystanders, health workers and police, and asked for privacy.

The member for Indi

Ms Haines, a former nurse and midwife, has held Indi, in north-east Victoria, since 2019, when she succeeded the independent Cathy McGowan and became the first independent elected to succeed another independent in federal parliament, the ABC reported. She has worked mostly on integrity. Earlier on Monday she had issued a statement welcoming the announcement of a new head of the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

What exists on the record so far is a time, a street, a man in custody, a knife and a prime minister’s word for it. The word that matters in law has not yet been used by anyone with the power to use it.