Latest / The Front / Albo, the shit sheet and the Helen Haines blame game

Transcript

Albo, the shit sheet and the Helen Haines blame game · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From The Australian, here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, October 27, 2026. We all agree public discourse
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: has become nasty and dangerous to the extent a politician
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: can be mown down in her own hometown, allegedly by
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: one of her own constituents.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: But why?
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Is it the manosphere? Is it politicians screaming at each other?
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Is it social media? And can the police really change
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: their own ways? Dennis Shanahan is here in just a moment.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: The shock from what happened last Monday is like a
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: stone in our hearts. I pledge to act with honesty,
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: respect and compassion.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: I will endeavour to do better. Our parliament requires tough
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: and rigorous debate.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: But in moments like this one, we can reflect on
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: how we.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Can do better. When I think, what would Helen do?
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: I know you'd be saying, keep going.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Dennis Shanahan is The Australian's national editor. Dennis, on Monday morning,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: we heard some beautiful words in Parliament. We're seeing some
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: very moving images of parliamentarians with their heads bowed in
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: the very place where often they are yelling at one another, pointing, screaming,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: often what People see of Parliament, the only thing that
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: many Australians see of Parliament is some clips on the
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: TV news or on social media where people are shouting
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: at one another. You've seen this before, after something serious
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: happens to a politician. How does this compare, this situation
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: with Helen Haynes?
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: I remember distinctly debate after the suicide of the Labor
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: MP Greg Wilton.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: It is my sad duty to inform the House of
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: the death on Wednesday the 14th of June 2000 of
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: Gregory Stuart Wilton, member for the division of Isaacs, the
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: Prime Minister.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Whatever it was that consumed Greg's.
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: Feelings that led him to take his life, I can
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: only say that it makes me feel very sad.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: It is like dropping a life into an ocean and
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: watching the ripples spread.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Until it covers us all. A good person and a
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: good life shouldn't end this way. Greg was a close colleague,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: but more than that, he was my mate.
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: And the condolences on that day in June 2000 were
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: very heartfelt and people talked about the need for a kinder,
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: gentler parliament.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Well, all of those good thoughts lasted about 48 hours.
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: Parliament erupted in its most raucous eruption we've seen, name-calling, ejections.
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: Six members were thrown out, which was a record at
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: the time. There were allegations of bullying and vilification and
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: so forth. So that sort of sense lasted about 48 hours.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: What we've seen now is.
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: a different approach because of the nature of the injuries
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: and the circumstances of the attack on Helen Haynes. So
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: we're seeing a much broader discussion about the Parliament and
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: parliamentary behaviour than we did with previous condolence motions.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: The very design of our Houses of Parliament is set
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: up for adversarial kind of combat. It's based on the
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: House of Commons for 500 years. That has been a
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: place where the two sides face one another and they yell.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: You get the sense that parliamentary insiders or political insiders
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: regard that as all just kind of harmless theatre. They
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: almost see it as fun. I've always found it kind
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: of juvenile and stupid. You've spent more time than probably
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: anyone in Australia in the press gallery observing all of this, Dennis.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: What is your sense of it? Do you find it
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: engaging and fun and lively and democratic, or do you
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: find it annoying and stupid?
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: Well, all of the above, really. And you're right about
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: the adversarial nature of parliament. The dispatch boxes are a
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: drawn sword's point apart.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: That's how adversarial it was.
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: They measured the distance between the dispatch boxes by a
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: drawn sword, the length of a drawn sword. And little
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: of that has changed except it's repartee rather than epi.
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: But it is about fundamentally the exercise of ideas, but
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: that involves politically also the personality of the people involved.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: And so we've seen some leaders who have been very aggressive.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Why won't you call an early election? Order. Order. Order.
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: I want to do you slowly.
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: This was all part of the so-called theatre of parliament,
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: You shut up, member from McEwen.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: You absolutely shut up. And you should, because this is important.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: This is our veterans. They cannot.
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: But what we now have, and we've had the Federal
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: Police Commissioner point to this over the weekend, to say
• 5:47
  Speaker 4: that the situation with society at the moment, and of
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: course social media has a role here, and even Helen Haynes'
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: husband has said on Monday morning to MPs that now
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: you need to be careful as to what you say,
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: not because of what you might say to someone across
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: the aisle in Parliament, but what you might say to
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: someone outside Parliament who is on the edge. In an
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: atmosphere of radicalisation, the adoption of all sorts of aggressive
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: and violent behaviour, what the politicians are now facing is
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: a challenge as to how they balance robust adversarial comment
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: and debate, which is about policy, and how they try
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: not to trigger those on the periphery. We have a
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: strong democracy, we have a very good electoral system, and
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: we have a very committed public to voting, in part
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: because it's compulsory, but to this system. And I think
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: that this is what the current politicians are now wrestling with.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: They have a clear threat to individuals. What is new is.
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: The extent of the availability of MPs, the knowledge that
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: people have of where they are. And this depersonalisation of
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: social media where people can say they think they can
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: say anything they like.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the mystique has certainly fallen away and politicians are
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: constantly now trying to make themselves seem friendly and approachable
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: on social media because they want to get around us.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: You know, they want to get around the traditional media.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: The two things that have really changed since, I think,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: the 1500s, when this Westminster system of facing one another
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: and yelling kind of arose, is one, the performance to
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: be in the grab on the TV news, And then
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: the other part is politicians cutting up grabs from either
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: parliament or from committee hearings to amplify on their social media.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: We've seen senior public servants kind of objecting to that, saying, look,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: we're happy to come and be questioned at a committee,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: but we don't want to be sliced and diced on
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: your social media for our own humiliation. I mean, it
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: goes well beyond politicians, doesn't it? Who are the potential
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: victims of this?
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Well, it certainly does.
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: And it has changed dramatically where people use and we've
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: seen just in recent weeks, examples of people saying things
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: on social media, which they normally wouldn't. And of course,
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: they were saying things about Helen Haynes before the accident.
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: We know there was the Prime Minister's office had taken
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: umbrage at her questions about grants and the suggestion that
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: Anthony Albanese had a conflict of interest because he had
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: an honorary membership in a Marrickville golf club that got
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: a $ 6 million grant. And the Prime Minister's office distributed
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: what was traditionally called a shit sheet. And I might
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: point out that when Greg Wilton committed suicide, one of
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: the pressures on him, as well as a media focus,
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: by the way, was a series of shit sheets being
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: put around for his pre-selection. So nothing has changed in
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: that regard as far as the political process is concerned.
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: And so this is what Helen Haynes's husband was talking about,
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: that you have to really think now, how far does
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: this reach? Who does it reach and what effect will
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: it have? This is a chilling moment for free speech
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: in Australia. It's a chilling and shaking moment for MPs.
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: And at this stage, you get the feeling that they
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: don't quite know what to do. We've seen a lot
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: of of sympathetic noises made, but really so far no
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: concrete idea as to what we can do to try
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: and turn down the temperature, as the Prime Minister says
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: and has been saying for a long time.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Time.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: But as we've seen, even the Prime Minister's office didn't
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: mind turning up the temperature on Helen Haynes before the incident.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Coming up, so should we be banning shit-sheets? That shit sheet,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: you've seen a lot of those flying around. Did you
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: think it was offensive? Do you think it, you know,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: has your opinion of it changed in the days since
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: she was attacked, allegedly?
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: Oh, well, look, it's all very well post facto to say, oh, well,
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: this was terrible and, you know, the Prime Minister was saying. Now, look,
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: the Prime Minister and his office wouldn't have put out
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: a shit sheet hoping that something was going to.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Happen to Helen Haynes.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: No, of course not.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: But it changes after. Hmm.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: There was a famous incident where Peter Costello humiliated a
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: Labor senator for the abuse of home allowances. What Peter
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: Costello didn't know was that that Labor senator was going
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: through his own personal crisis in a relationship, had failed,
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: and that night attempted suicide and was discovered unconscious the
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: next morning.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, I remember this.
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: This is part of the questions that are being asked,
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: is what's acceptable in the political process? And a shit sheet,
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: something that maybe the Prime Minister should come up and say, yeah,
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: that was a shit sheet. I won't be putting one
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: of those out again, that's for sure, and encouraging everyone
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: else to do the same thing. That would be something
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: that would be a progression in the quality of the debate.
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: So I think that It is an extremely difficult area
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: to be in and no one should actually jump to
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: any conclusions about the reasons for the attack on Helen Haynes.
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: Let's remember there was a mass stabbing in Bondi at
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: the shopping centre by somebody who'd been taken off his
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: medication and There was no rhyme or reason to it.
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: It was literally an act of madness. And so these
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: are things you can't allow for an act of madness
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: when we're trying to talk about the democratic system. They
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: don't compute.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: I remember once driving a friend to hospital when she
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: was in labour and we were driving at about 25
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: kilometres an hour, of course, because there was something serious
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: going on in the car and lots of people were
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: honking at us. And I had been a honker and
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: it changed my behavior, changed my life, actually, because it's
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: like nobody around us in the traffic knew what was
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: going on inside this car. And so I try and
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: don't always succeed now to think, well, what's going on
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: in that car that's being really annoying in front of
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: me or to the side of me? You know, I
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe someone's in labor. Maybe somebody's dying. You know,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: maybe there's a divorce happening. They're having a big argument.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, we can't.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Change our lives depending on whether someone who's insane might
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: do something. But we can probably behave as if somebody
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: who's on the edge might hear this. And what's the
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: worst that could happen? Well, maybe I need to moderate
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: my behavior.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: And I have a sympathy there, Claire, having driven at
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: 25 kilometers a So far on the left side of
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: the road that I was bumping into the gutter and
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: the person in labour said, pull onto the road and
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: stop going through the bumps.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: So I appreciate that.
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: I'm also told that apparently you put a white handkerchief
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: in the window and wind it up and let the
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: white handkerchief signal there is something going on. Perhaps this
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: is part of what our civic duty is about, is
• 14:10
  Speaker 4: to know when to... give some people some space to
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: pick up on signals, to have signals we can send people.
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: This is part of civic discourse. I had a neighbour
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: say to me on the weekend he was aghast at
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: what had happened to Helen Haynes and he was very
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: concerned and he felt that what was being said on
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: social media, the way he put it, he said, you know,
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: if somebody said some of this stuff to you in
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: a pub, they.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Wouldn't get away with it.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: No.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: I thought, well, that is exactly right.
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: When you're face to face in a personal situation, particularly
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: if you're looking at my neighbor, I can tell you,
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: you wouldn't say anything offensive or make some outrageous claim
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: because you're there, you're in the space. It's the depersonalization
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: that takes place and the rules.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: That need to take up.
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: And we have to be careful in the same situation
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: where people have intervened, where somebody is yelling at somebody
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: or abusing somebody or something, and they turn around and
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: they suffer some terrible injuries or something.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Yes. And so people start to pull back.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: This is the much wider issue of civic society which
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: is being felt this week in Parliament by MPs and
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: Senators who have had a graphic and horrific example of
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: what can happen to our elected representatives when things go wrong.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Dennis Shanahan, thank you very much.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Claire.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Dennis Shanahan is The Australian's national editor. You can check
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: out all our journalism from Canberra and beyond anytime at theaustralian.com.au.