Hostility from constituents is not new for the state’s politicians, including its premiers. But the alleged attack on Helen Haines has sent a chill down the collective spine

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On Monday night, Georgie Purcell shared a statement on social media in support of Helen Haines, who earlier that day had been allegedly attacked by a constituent in her regional Victorian electorate.

Purcell, a Victorian upper-house MP whose region partly overlaps with Haines’s federal electorate, wrote that the alleged attack had sent chills down her spine. Being a woman in politics, she said, had changed the way she moved through the world – where she parked her car, which route she took home, even whether she held public events at all.

AFP commissioner says MPs are generally concerned about growing volume of abuse and intimidation

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The head of the Australian federal police has condemned a “febrile” political environment that has seen one person charged every week over the alleged threatening of MPs, as Victoria announces new steps to protect politicians.

But the AFP and Victoria police insist they had no intelligence to suggest 43-year-old Brendan Nugent would go on to allegedly drive a Toyota LandCruiser into the independent MP Helen Haines in a targeted attack.