Grattan on Friday: Politics reflects society, and our society is in poor shape on many fronts

As the national political conversation descended into fear and loathing after Monday’s horrific attack on Helen Haines, two federal parliamentarians had the political nous, or good grace, to step back from instances of offensive behaviour. Liberal frontbencher Angie Bell, who last week said in parliament that Small Business Minister Anne Aly, a Muslim, and Anthony Albanese should be “stoned in the square” – a line she had to withdraw on the day – referred on Wednesday to her “regrettable comment”. Pauline Hanson on Tuesday apologised for a One Nation cartoon lampooning Jacqui Lambie over speaking about her vaginal prolapse. Hanson, saying she hadn’t seen the cartoon before it went up, said it was not “as tastefully done as it could’ve been”. But Albanese, who’d been lauding Haines as a person of the highest integrity, wasn’t inclined to admit any fault over a so-called “dirt sheet” implicitly inviting questions about her integrity, which his office reportedly distributed to journalists after Haines highlighted pork barrelling that included $6 million for a golf club in the PM’s seat. Rather, the prime minister put a creative and disingenuous interpretation on the document: “It’s a list of funding asks from Helen Haines just showing that people of integrity stand up for their electorate. No personal criticism of Helen.” We can’t know, at this stage, if (or how) the cesspool of our national political discourse, including and especially on social media, contributed to the attack on Haines. Regardless, the attack has triggered an outpouring over how politicians, old (now click-driven) media, social media and the community more widely contest differences, as well as questions about security arrangements for political figures. Almost everyone would agree political discourse has coarsened in recent times and, at worst, become appalling. We shouldn’t romanticise the past – bad things were often said and done. But now there seems to be no let up, partly because the political players are in constant campaign mode, as are the activists, and especially because social media is a round-the-clock platform for unfiltered expression. Politics, however, reflects society, and our society is in poor shape on many fronts. When, for example, did children in considerable numbers start harassing and intimidating teachers, sometimes extending to violence – with parents not infrequently siding with the child? When did we begin having warnings in doctors’ surgeries and many other places about treating staff properly? When did domestic violence, and sexual harassment at universities, become epidemics? To say nothing of incidents in supermarkets, road rage, and children in their early teens regularly committing serious crimes. Of course social media is a major driver of, and conduit for, antisocial conduct; as assistant minister Andrew Leigh said in a speech this week, it has “turbocharged anger”. And no doubt the pandemic has a lot to answer for. But one has to think there are multiple factors at work, and not just including economic pressures, drug addiction and worsening mental health, but also weakening family and community ties and an erosion of some core values and social manners. If there is to be any hope of building a more civil society, a key effort would have to start from the ground up: at the level of parents, schools, community organisations and the like. And that’s a massive challenge. The depth of our malaise was illustrated after Governor-General Sam Mostyn, appearing with Haines’ husband Phil on Wednesday, appealed to Australians to “learn or relearn to exercise our muscle of decency”. It was hardly a provocative intervention. On Thursday, Mostyn revealed that overnight comments had been posted on her Instagram page, “in capitals with expletives, once again questioning the very nature of what it is that I do”. There are two interconnected issues in relation to political discourse: how politicians behave, and how people behave towards politicians. While politicians are in a self-reflective moment in their shock, you’d have to be an optimist to think this will lead to serious change. Many of our current crop of parliamentarians have been bred for conflict (unlike Haines, a former health worker with a substantial career behind her before entering politics). MPs increasingly come from within the political class, often having been staffers. Working in politics most of their adult lives, they see as normal the unrestrained verbal attacks that would be unacceptable in other workplaces. (A similar lack of restraint characterises some of the most prominent “opinion” commentators.) Leaders in recent years have professed commitment to higher parliamentary standards. But there’s been no observable change. Question time is often disgraceful; politicians feel no shame, apparently, in being tossed out by the speaker after they misbehave. If we are unlikely to see any better standard from the politicians, we certainly won’t get it from social media (regardless of what happens with the government’s current “duty of care” legislation – that is directed to the extremes of harm). In some quarters claims about the right to speak freely have turned into claims about the right to abuse freely. The disdain and distrust that many people feel for politicians encourages some people to indulge in foul social media posts. Alarmingly, the police and the politicians themselves are reporting an increasing number of death and other threats. Australian Federal Police chief Krissy Barrett said this week that in 2024–2025, “the AFP received 951 reports of harassing, nuisance, offensive and threatening behaviour against high office holders, federal parliamentarians, electorate offices, and protected establishments”. In 2025-26, it rose to 1067. National Security Investigations (NSI) teams investigate threats against federal parliamentarians and high office holders. Barrett said since the NSI teams were established a year ago, 41 people have been charged for offences relating to threats against federal parliamentarians and high office holders. This week politicians were briefed on security issues, as they are regularly. But as Liberal frontbencher James Paterson told the ABC, although this advice is useful, sometimes it is “actually very difficult to implement while still doing our jobs as members of parliament”. He gave the example of earlier advice not to advertise attendance at a function – this was not practical for most parliamentarians who needed to be accessible for constituents. Security for parliamentarians has been constantly tweaked, including access to MPs’ offices inside and outside parliament. Senior office holders, and others on a needs basis, have high security. But Haines, the most polite and respectful member of the political class that you’d ever find, was attacked as she stood by the boot of her car outside her office in a country town. There’d not been red flags. It’s hard to imagine how any level of security could have prevented this atrocity.