As we all know, Helen Haines is a work colleague and a friend of us in this chamber. Speaker, I can say quite honestly—and I'm sure you feel the same way—I have never heard one colleague in this chamber say a negative word about Helen Haines. With all due respect to all of us, that doesn't go for a lot of people in this chamber because there are many negative words that have been said about me and many others in this chamber—but never about Helen Haines. Many of the reasons have been said, but I like one of the lines the Prime Minister said about Helen—that she had a twinkle in her eye. She always did have this thing about her face and her eyes that was a twinkle, that was optimism and that was about a lot of courtesy and her energy and how she communicated with all of us. So, as with everyone, my prayers and thoughts are very much with her and her family. She has a huge journey. As we all know, she has now literally lost two legs. Her physical journey and her emotional journey in recovery is going to be long and it's going to be arduous. I know all of our thoughts and our prayers are with her and her family.

We're doing this today because obviously this was quite unique. There are, unfortunately, lots of acts of violence and other things that happen in our country, but obviously Helen was targeted. There are allegations about why this happened, but Helen was mowed down by a car and this physical damage was done to her because she sits in this chamber, and that's what we're acknowledging today. It's important that we do that today.

It was great to see her husband, Philip, and to meet him today. He spoke with great grace about her and that her initial responses when she came out of her anaesthetic on Friday night was to talk about other people but also great optimism. All of our thoughts are with her three children, Will, Nick and Georgia, and their extended families because they are all going to be on this journey together, and this will be a long, long journey for all of them.

I also want to touch on how we've seen, in the last few years, some horrific things happen in our country. But in all those instances there have been great acts of heroism and great acts of the Australian spirit around that. We've heard that about Ricky, the barber who ran out and literally disarmed the assailant, and about Cody, Jacklyn and Jacob, who came to her aid and showed great heroism. You don't know what's going on in a moment like that. You don't know if there are other people involved or what the motivation is. But their instinctive response to that was everything that we like about our country. In times of great darkness, we do see great heroism and inspiration.

It was mentioned as well earlier by others that we've seen acts of violence in street protests and in Bondi. But it's been mentioned that around the world there's this great despondency and dialogue that is not good. It was mentioned, I think, by the manager of the House that even retail workers have seen increasing acts of violence towards them in their workplaces from the anger of people and the language of people. I know we can dwell on this and we need to dwell on this and we need to call some of it out and we need to be conscious about what is going on in our communities and around the world. But I have great optimism when I hear about the people who went and helped Helen and the danger they put themselves in, the risk they took and the bravery that they showed.

I have great optimism in our country. I have great optimism about the Australian people. I want to finish by quoting you, Mr Speaker; I think there will be a moment of great joy and inspiration in this chamber for all of us—and I look forward to the day it happens—when you call the member for Indi. There'll probably be the loudest 'hear, hear' when you call the member for Indi to speak.