Independent MP Zali Steggall called for greater respect in times of disagreement, highlighting the importance of leadership and words. She warned that social media is a platform through which abuse and threats are sent via direct messages, calls to her electoral office, or repugnant content.
Steggall described it as staggering how detached people sometimes are from manners and reality when they launch tirades and issue threats. She emphasised that a great deal of money, effort and thought has been invested in security within the parliament building, but that the true vulnerability lies when they are doing their job in the community. In her words, the focus should be precisely on that.
Independent MP Allegra Spender stated that she had spoken with Phil Haines about his wife's first words since she was allegedly attacked. Addressing the House of Representatives, she said that Phil recounted her first words upon waking after the alleged attack. Spender noted that her first concerns upon waking were for her staff and gratitude towards first responders, nurses and passers-by. That, she said, speaks to her character. She added that people had spoken of her empathy and grace and that she deserves recognition, which paints a picture of her as a benevolent force wandering through parliament, but also as a force for change.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor spoke in Canberra and said that the Coalition would be happy to work with the government on 'reasonable measures' for the safety of Australians, including politicians. He told journalists that they would always work with the government on this issue. He highlighted that they had already identified some areas where they believe there is a real need for additional spending on national security and intelligence services, particularly focused on the need for enhanced vetting of people on visas or those entering the country. Taylor asserted that the government spends too much in other areas and that there is 'no doubt' that the Labor Party intends to 'permanently increase the size of government'.
Tim Wilson, the shadow finance minister, added that the Coalition would work to 'get the budget back under control'. He cited the end of what he called 'climate bureaucracy', 'housing bureaucracy' and 'corporate welfare'. He said that the government is absolutely dependent on spending and that this is the basis for why mortgage rates for Australian households are rising. People, he said, go to the supermarket and pay more, while getting less. More than ever, with rising costs, households and especially small Australian businesses need economic hope and confidence to look towards the horizon and believe they can have a better economic future than today. Instead, Wilson asserted, they are broken by rising costs.
Richard Pye, who is retiring, was asked earlier this morning about a recent attempt by senior public servants to prevent politicians from posting videos of them on social media. The Secretaries' Committee, which includes heads of departments and agencies, warned that publishing clips of public officials answering questions in public forums, such as Senate estimates, could expose those officials to 'mockery, hostility and abuse'. Pye said that he had advised the committee on that move and that it was 'simply... absolutely not something a witness can do'. He added that this does not diminish the fact that some people have been very hurt by their experiences before Senate and House of Representatives committees and the handling of the recordings that resulted from them.
Pye considered it deeply unhelpful that this issue was raised that day without any notice to anyone, neither through the secretariat, nor the chair, nor other members of the committee, when the Secretaries' Committee raised the issue in a submission to the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Standards. He added that any proposal to resolve this issue would require 'tough conversations', much sensitivity and ingenuity to ensure that, in the effort to clean up behaviour related to the handling of social media clips, the accountability involved in those processes is not lost, especially in the case of contentious government policy. That, he concluded, must be given great weight.
Meanwhile, a number of federal MPs are signing the civility pledge of the organisation Compassion in Politics Australia in honour of Helen Haines, who was a signatory of that pledge before she was allegedly attacked last week. The Cipa website lists half a dozen federal and state politicians as signatories of the pledge. Parliament heard emotional tributes to the Indi MP.
