Police Have Not Said an Australian MP Was Hit Deliberately; the Prime Minister Calls It No Accident
Independent MP Helen Haines was struck by a car and severely injured outside her office in Wangaratta, a regional town in Victoria. Police say a 43-year-old man was arrested at the scene and a knife was seized, but they have not said Haines was hit deliberately.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, however, swiftly described the incident as an apparent attack. He had been briefed by federal police, whose counter terror squad is helping state officers investigate, and told the national broadcaster the incident was not an accident.
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The two statements sit at very different distances from the same event: police will not say Haines was hit deliberately, while the prime minister was quick to call it an apparent attack. That gap may say more about what each side can responsibly assert right now than about any real disagreement over what happened.
The labelling argument is the secondary story. Some MPs in Canberra are complaining that security arrangements have not changed with the climate, and they warn that if a political motivation for this incident is confirmed, one of the greatest tenets of the country's political culture could now be at risk.
And if the Federal Police are right that grievance, not only ideology, is radicalising people in recent cases, then any threat model tuned to organised beliefs will keep missing the individuals who act without one.