Listening to the contributions to this —I'm reluctant to call it a debate; it's support around this motion across the chamber—it is as the Prime Minister described it this morning. The events have left a stone in our hearts. But some of the contributions today have lifted some of that weight and, I think, given us hope. Within this building, we had the privilege of hearing from Phil Haines today. He talked about his wife and her qualities and her superpowers. In fact, as long as I am in this parliament, I'm not sure that I will ever hear a better contribution than the one made by Phil Haines today. So it is with heaviness that I express my gratitude and extend my sincere thoughts to Phil and Helen and their family, friends and staff and the community that have rallied around them not only in Wangaratta but across the country. It is such an obvious thing and has been said many times, but it is really an indication of what it means to be Australian that people run towards danger and that that we will, at the end of the day, look out for others before we look out for ourselves, which I think is also a good description of Helen Haines herself.

It is, I think, in some ways too early to ascribe motives. We know it's too early to ascribe motives. I think you could take what happened to the member for Indi out of the debate. We know that our democracy is in a fragile place. Perhaps it is social media. Perhaps it is economic dislocation. Whatever it is, something has changed, and something changed before Helen Haines was attacked.

I do like to remind people that Australia has a unique democracy. At 125 years old, we are one of—believe it or not—the oldest democracies in the world. There is something about the Australian spirit. I love to tell the story when I can that, along with all of the convicts who stole bread who were in the First Fleet, there were political prisoners, such as the Tolpuddle Martyrs, trade union activists who were too troublesome for the home country and so they sent them out here. That's why we were one of the first countries—in fact, we were the first country—to have the secret ballot. We were the first country to allow men to vote regardless of whether they owned property or had wealth, and we were one of the first countries to allow women to vote. Our democracy is not just an extra to our national spirit; it defines our national spirit.

To see what social media has become and is doing to democracy breaks my heart. I had a personal experience of this during the 2020 campaign. I'd run a couple of times by then in state elections. During the 2020 council elections I was able to run the campaign for the best candidate I ever had, Renee Clarke, for the Gold Coast council. She was the best candidate because she let me, as the campaign manager, run the campaign. I'm not sure that we could say that for all of the candidates in this room! Running her campaign and running her webpage back in 2020, before it really started to supercharge, was just an entirely different experience with a woman candidate from any time that I'd run as a male candidate. The level of abuse, the level of patronisation and the level of awfulness was something that I had never experienced and, to this day, have never experienced as a male candidate. So there is something going wrong.

But, if you listened to Phil's speech today and the contributions that we've heard in this House, there is also something going right. I'm eternally optimistic that we have it in our community to recover from this. Helen Haines, before this attack, was an example for how we get out of this trouble, but even more so she is an inspiration today. I wish her a speedy and strong recovery.

The House transcript was published up to 20:04. The remainder of the transcript will be published progressively as it is completed.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Mascarenhas ) took the chair at 11:01.