Man arrested for threatening another female lawmaker in Australia

An Australian man has been arrested after allegedly threatening staff at a female lawmaker’s office with nunchucks, days after another member of parliament lost both her legs in a suspected politically motivated attack.Police responded to reports of a disturbance at the Victoria Park office of Western Australian state lawmaker Hannah Beazley around 1:15 p.m. Wednesday, local time. The man allegedly made verbal threats while carrying a weapon described as nunchucks, police said.Officers later located a 56-year-old man in the nearby suburb of Bentley. Police said he was assisting them with their inquiries. Beazley said her staff was shaken by the incident, but no one was injured.“Staff within my electorate office were faced with a confronting situation when a member of the public entered the office armed with a weapon,” she said. “My focus is on the welfare of those staff members.”The motive remains unknown, she added.The incident comes as Australia grapples with concerns about the safety of elected officials, particularly women, following an attack on independent federal lawmaker Helen Haines earlier this week.Haines, 65, was left in critical condition after a man allegedly rammed her multiple times with a Toyota Land Cruiser SUV in her hometown of Wangaratta on Monday. Both of her legs were amputated following the attack.Tributes and flowers are placed outside the electoral office for independent member of parliament Helen Haines in Wangaratta, Australia, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026. (James Ross/AAPImage via AP) The two incidents have intensified debate over whether Australian politicians are adequately protected against threats and whether increasingly hostile public discourse is contributing to the risk of political violence.Australian lawmakers have traditionally maintained relatively open access to constituents, and political violence has been uncommon. But officials have raised concerns about the growing volume of online abuse, particularly misogynistic threats directed at women in public office.Prime Minister Anthony Albanese addressed the concerns Wednesday, saying that the threat against Beazley was particularly distressing given its timing, calling the sequence of incidents “just heartbreaking.” Beazley is the daughter of Kim Beazley, a former federal colleague of the prime minister.“We can have debate and disagreement, but do it in a way without descending into the sort of violence that we have seen in too many parts of the world,” Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “It’s certainly not who we are as Australians.”Albanese also attended an online security briefing this week for women lawmakers in his center-left Labor Party, where security agencies addressed misogynistic threats against female politicians.FOUR DEAD AND DOZENS WOUNDED AFTER MAJOR FIRE BREAKS OUT AT CANADIAN MILITARY BASELawmakers across party lines have acknowledged that women are bearing the brunt of much of the online abuse.“There has been a normalization of behavior that can be very aggressive in a way that wasn’t happening a couple of decades ago,” Albanese said, adding that the threats have left politicians concerned about their safety.