Political violence is extremely rare in Australia, where lawmakers often go into public with little or no security and their accessibility is a matter of national pride.
“It’s an Australian tradition to chat with a politician you pass in the shops,” said Josh Roose, associate professor of politics at Deakin University in Melbourne, in an interview with NBC News.
But the threats are growing as political discourse becomes more extreme, officials and experts say, particularly since the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the Australian Federal Police, there were 1,067 incidents of threats, harassment, nuisance or offensive behavior against senior officials, parliamentarians and protected places in the 2025-26 financial year, an increase of 12 per cent from the previous year and double the number five years earlier.
In a 2023 survey of Victorian parliamentarians, 82% reported harassment and 85% reported threats of harm, said Josh Holloway, a senior lecturer in government at Flinders University in Adelaide, with female politicians more likely to be victims of abuse.
Holloway said Australian federal lawmakers, particularly those in rural areas, typically work in “storefront-style offices”, hold regular community meetings and attend local events without security.
These practices may now face scrutiny, “but reducing the public’s access to their representatives may come at a significant democratic cost,” he said in emailed comments.
Albanese said Tuesday it was everyone’s responsibility to “lower the temperature.”
“We can disagree with each other, but let’s do it in a respectful way,” he told Australia’s “Today” show. “And that’s something that has always characterized Helen Haines, is the respect that she showed to others, regardless of the political spectrum.”
Albanese later said he spoke on the phone with local barber Ricky Jefferies, who ran from his nearby shop to help arrest Haines’ attacker, which Albanese said was “a great example of the Australian spirit”.
“I heard a loud bang, no brakes. It was crazy,” Jefferies told reporters. “I ran ahead to see what was happening.”
Jefferies, who said he pulled a knife out of the suspect’s pocket and got him out of the car, said a lot of people “just ran to help him.”
Haines, a mother and grandmother who spent three decades working in rural health as a nurse and midwife and who has a doctorate in childbirth, was first elected to Parliament in 2019 and re-elected in 2022 and 2025. Her family said in a statement that they were grateful for the “quick help from bystanders” as well as first responders.
The increase in political threats in Australia follows a similar trend in the United States and other liberal democracies, Roose said.
“Australia still echoes what we see internationally, but sometimes slightly behind,” he said.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, a “level of extremist discourse unprecedented in Australian history has emerged”, Roose said, discourse heavily influenced by US politics.
Australia, and particularly Victoria, experienced some of the strictest pandemic lockdowns in the world, which left residents feeling “imprisoned, but also powerless”, he said.
Lingering feelings of resentment, combined with the current high cost of housing, fuel and other necessities, have contributed to a “deep hostility” toward the government, Roose said.
Politics in rural Australia, in particular, has become “highly inflammatory”, he said, “because of the online space, the poverty and the desperation that, frankly, has seeped into these areas”.
Roose said the “paradox” was that the victim was Haines, who is not considered a polarizing figure and is “someone who grew up and spent most of his life in these areas.”
“It indicates, I suppose, the challenge facing democracies around the world,” he said.
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