I have received a letter from the honourable member for Bradfield proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The urgent need to prevent political violence and foster constructive and respectful public discourse.

I call upon those honourable members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I rise to speak about this matter of public importance about the urgent need to prevent political violence and foster constructive and respectful public discourse. I'm absolutely shattered by what's happened to Dr Helen Haines, as are so many of the colleagues across the parliament. In the wake of this horrendous incident, I wanted to create a space in parliament for us to make sense of what's happened, to take a step back and to ask ourselves why the head of our security agencies has warned repeatedly of the rising risk of politically motivated violence; why the Prime Minister has urged the country, our leaders and our media to turn down the heat of political debate; why every day we seem to stray further from discourse that's respectful and constructive and fall instead into arguments and accusations that are hateful, abusive and inflammatory; and why we are then surprised when the hateful rhetoric bubbles into actual unbridled savage violence. What's going on here? Why are the bonds holding us together fraying?

Here's one possible reason. We move through digital worlds distorted by opaque algorithms that operate according to the whims of profit-seeking tech bros, and they wreak havoc because of the inability and unwillingness of governments to regulate them. The consequence is that we no longer share the same social world. We might walk down the same streets. We may shop in the same supermarkets and even send our kids to the same schools, but we do this all while inhabiting separate realms, separate bubbles. We've lost our common world—our shared understanding of social reality.

That shared understanding is absolutely critical to a functioning, cohesive society. Without it, we've got no civic space to meet and come together as equal citizens, where we listen to each other and exchange views with respect and tolerance. Increasing misogyny and violence are consequences of these ruptures in our social fabric. With each violent word and action, the tears become harder to repair, but there are things that we can do right now to begin mending them.

The starting principle is to choose people over profit, for governments to put the safety of the public ahead of the preferences of overseas tech lords. A digital duty of care—which will hopefully pass both houses soon—is a big step forward, and I commend the government for this reform, but we can't just blame previous governments for an unwillingness to regulate, and we can't just blame social media companies who are driven by a profit motive. We parliamentarians are also responsible. We fuelled this fire and now we have to douse it.

The quality of behaviour in parliament has become toxic, violent and inflammatory. We've let ourselves become hostages to the algorithms. We play by their tune. The objective of political discourse has become social media grabs, so politicians ape the outrage, the cheap shots and the anger that feed the algorithm and lay the foundations for physical violence. Yesterday—I feel upset to have to say this, but I have to get it on the record. Yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition—the alternative to the government—stood there and refused to acknowledge that our words in this place have consequences. They do. We all need to change the behaviour that we have in this place.

Violence has no place in democracy, but politicians will never be able to preach that important message unless we ourselves practise it in this building. We're staring down a very dark path otherwise. We've been comfortable in our confidence that Australia is not like other countries—that we are somehow immune from the violence that others experience routinely—but this conveniently ignores our past. Australia's history is peppered with irregular, but nonetheless significant, politically motivated attacks. More recent events, like the Bondi massacre, and now this attack on the member for Indi, are proving this wrong as well.

They show that we are not immune. We're standing on the brink of something very frightening, but we can step into a different future, and, as Helen's husband, Phil Haines, has implored us to do in recent days, we must. We cannot respond to this horrific event by returning to the status quo. We should do everything we can to ensure that the member for Indi's story is remembered as a turning point for our country, where we chart a new course towards civility in politics, towards respectful disagreement and towards collaborative and constructive governance, where people come first, not corporate profits. As Phil Haines put it, there is a rage boiling in the hearts of too many Australians, but you can choose to tame it or to inflame it, and it's for all of us to choose which one.

I very rarely speak on an MPI. But I saw the words that the member for Bradfield put before us, and I thought it was important that I be here to contribute, given my role in the House, and I want to thank the member for Bradfield for bringing this forward for discussion. The concept of matters of public importance is that they are meant to be the issue of the day. The MPI doesn't always tick that box in terms of what is put forward, but today it certainly does, and government members were very pleased, when members were asked to stand in support, that it was much more than the crossbench standing for this. So I thank the member.

I want to go through some of the concerns that people have raised and hopefully help chart a way through, which many of us may follow and some of us inevitably won't. But I start with this: the first role that makes me believe I have to contribute to the debate is not that I've got that over-the-top job title of Leader of the House—which is a bit insane, given everyone else in the room—but the fact that I'm the minister responsible for the Australian Federal Police. I spend a lot of my working day looking at threats to people who work in this room, regardless of their politics. And people on the crossbench here and in the other place, people in the opposition here and in the other place, and people in the government here and in the other place have all had phone calls from me at different points where we have made various risk assessments.

The risk assessments where we get worried about someone's safety go to two main areas: either (a) where there is—and thankfully this is rare—a specific known threat against someone or (b) where the temperature is really high, with the online level being one of the arbiters, but not the only one, and is disproportionate to what's happening to others, and the police have been alarmed and Home Affairs have been concerned and wanting to make those decisions. At the moment it's been a very limited number of people for whom we've been able to provide that extra layer. And the Prime Minister made clear in our meeting today, which I also reported out, the way we are working through these issues, because there is an understandable need that more needs to be done.

So it's for your own security in this House that I look at this issue so often. But of course that issue of the temperature is not only an issue about the safety of each other. It's a safety issue about what it's like to live in Australia. As others have said, the risk is not only to people in public life. We are particularly targeted; that's true. But it has changed what it is to work in a hospital. What it is to work in retail or hospitality is different now. It has always been risky deciding that you want to be a sworn police officer, but it is different now to what it was. These issues of the temperature of the debate are real.

And this is not a partisan issue:

… "What we need is not to disagree less, but to disagree better."

Not disagreeing less, but disagreeing better.

When we disagree better: we engage with respect, rather than questioning each other's integrity and morality.

That was Scott Morrison talking there. Also: 'There should be long-term stability and certainty on the issue of national security' and 'I think everyone needs to lower the temperature.' That was Julie Bishop talking. In the same way:

It does have a direct correlation to what we see in terms of threats and abuse, and sometimes it's very immediate.

That is what the Australian Federal Police Commissioner, Krissy Barrett, said on Insiders on Sunday, echoing words we have been hearing for a long time from Mike Burgess, ASIO's Director-General of Security.

Sometimes, in defence against turning the temperature down, people say, 'Oh, but we need robust debate.' No-one is saying we don't need robust debate. Absolutely no-one is saying that. You won't find someone who enjoys robust debate more than I do. I think it matters that the issues that are debated, in this chamber in particular, are real. Differences have real consequences for the people who we come here to represent. The sense of frustration will be real, and emotions will occur. I would hate to be in a parliament where those emotions didn't occur.

I think what we are talking about is what questions we ask ourselves and what levels of self-censorship, not censorship elsewhere—maybe not even self-censorship; maybe we just say decency and restraint, yes—we're willing to provide. I've been toying with these thoughts and trying to work through it for a long time but probably fairly intensely over the last week or so. I don't want to pretend that this is final. Others will look at this and come up with other options. I've tried to look at examples of ways we describe things, ways we disagree. They'll be across the board. This is not me claiming that no-one on my side has ever or even that I have never done any of this, but I think in the future, with where we're at, we need to caution against this.

Obviously, anything that goes against what we would refer to in antidiscrimination law as someone's attributes, the full range of those, is sort of obvious, but also to associate someone with terrorism—there are things that language can do that effectively imply someone is unworthy of the other protections of a democracy: associating someone with terrorism, claiming that someone is a supporter of war crimes or genocide, calling someone a traitor, calling someone criminal, accusing someone of treason. That sort of language actually, in its undertone, says, 'You are not worthy of the democracy.' We need to think not how that sounds in the debate or how we might actually intend it to be. I think we need to take very closely the advice of Phil Haines when he addressed us yesterday, which is to also think about how the person on the edge will hear it. There are more people on the edge than there used to be, and that whole temperature of the debate means that we can't pretend they're not there.

All around the world now, people are dealing with angrier populations. All around the world now, people are dealing with basically what is the end of the water cooler conversation. I remember, when I was first at the workplace, people would talk about the water cooler conversation. You had a physical place where everyone at a workplace would gather at different points during the day, and you all would have watched the same TV shows the night before. There were only four or five to choose from. That's not how people get their information anymore. The capacity for people living in silos is higher, and the likelihood that those silos are telling people that they're not understood and that they should be angry and are guiding them to who they should blame is real. It's just fact. That is how an increasing number of people now get their information—in ways that 20 years ago it was not possible to receive information. That must leave us with an extra layer of responsibility.

The list that I went through—I don't propose to change standing orders or anything like that, but I do ask that we think, because, when I went through the attributes at the start, that also is our guide for who's most at risk. Part of the increased risk profile that is happening for members of parliament is because we have had a great outcome in having a parliament that looks more like Australia. But you are more at risk of this sort of vile abuse if you are a woman. You are more at risk if you are Muslim or Jewish, if you are a person of colour, if you are gay. Whatever the attribute might be, it all compounds to a higher level of risk. I think, in terms of what we have here in the urgent need to prevent political violence and to foster constructive and respectful public discourse, we do need to understand that any language that says someone is unworthy of the rights of citizenship carries consequences for the risk of that person. It might be someone we know. It might be someone we don't know. But it is someone where our words will carry a layer of responsibility. If we expect the media to do it, it's on us to do it as well. I'm really grateful we're having this conversation.

I rise to speak to this very important matter of public importance. Thanks for bringing it, Member for Bradfield. Political violence has no place in our society or in our democracy. Millions of ordinary people made enormous sacrifices for our political system to be founded on the principle that our political debates are settled by the ballot box not by violence and not by coercion. There's been a flurry of commentary from politicians and from the media over the last week since the wonderful Helen Haines was brutally attacked. I've already spoken in this chamber, as have many others, about how inspiring and kind an individual Helen Haines is. Today, I want to focus on how we understand and undermine the drivers of political violence.

Firstly, it's unclear whether the attacker's motives were primarily or consciously political. We must not jump to conclusions. There were clearly major mental health issues at play and some failings of our support systems that let people slip through the cracks. If politics is involved here, it is part of a very complex and unique set of circumstances. There is no doubt that there's an increase in predatory online activity and ecosystems that seek to prey on people's isolation and hurt.

It is true that there's more anger in the community now than there ever has been. It is true that there is more division than before, and, of course, we must have civility and respect in politics, but these concepts can be vague and slippery enough to serve different agendas. Civility obviously means not being a monster, but it also may imply that everyday people are not entitled to their legitimate feelings of anger and frustration at unfair systemic treatment.

When we're asked to turn the temperature down, there is a risk that that can backfire. If everyday people are frustrated because their living standards are dropping and because they're feeling more and more disconnected and alienated from their communities and more powerless, they will want to see politicians who understand these feelings. Having politicians simply adopt a more civil tone but keep everything else the same will only create more frustration in the community. Of course, we should not have politicians shouting at each other, hurling personal abuse. Politicians should behave appropriately and model the decent behaviour the public expects, but the solution is not really at the level of rhetoric at all.

If the core reason for the growth of frustration and anger is a decaying social fabric, then the solution can only be found at the level of that social fabric. How do we mend that social fabric? First, policy—actually genuinely start improving people's lives in significant, meaningful ways. Things have to be affordable. Our services must not have huge gaps. Housing cannot be so precarious. We need to feel more in control of our own lives.

Second, social organising, rebuilding that social fabric through deep community work, through rebuilding community organisations, through community programs, conversations and campaigning that creates and expresses shared interests—it's only through this that the hypercompetitive individualistic and profit-first culture of neoliberalism can be overcome. This is why the lesson from this horrible attack cannot be 'maintain the status quo but be more civil about it', nor can the lesson be 'nobody have passion in politics and nobody express their frustration'.

Finally, the lesson cannot be for politicians to be removed even further from everyday people out of safety concerns. The lessons should be the opposite. We need to dramatically break with the status quo and improve people's lives. We need more caring, more passion in politics but more collective passion. We need politicians more embedded in their community and more responsive to community need. Helen is a woman so thoroughly embedded in her community. We need more like her.

Coming back to democracy, political violence is a tragedy for the individual, but it's also a tragedy for democracy. Democracy wasn't won by meekness, and it's not defended by meekness. Women were given the vote not because they were civil. The suffragettes were an enormous pain in the backside of the political establishment. In my youth, the backwards authoritarianism of the Joh Bjelke-Petersen years in Queensland was not resisted with bland civility. It was resisted with passion and with conviction, and it was through these movements of great collective power, strength and passion that our social fabric was built.

Over the past week, we've been reminded of something that should never be in question in our democracy: no-one should face violence or intimidation for serving their community. Yesterday we heard truly heartfelt words in this place about our colleague and friend Helen Haines. Our thoughts remain with Helen, her family and everyone who loves her. It is difficult to find the right words in moments like this, but we must, and words do matter. But I think it's important that we reflect on the kind of public life we want in this country and the responsibility we all have in shaping it.

Last night I spoke about a conversation I had on Friday with someone in the Deputy Speaker's electorate in Newcastle. I had to pop in to do some last-minute fruit and veg, and a man stopped me and said: 'You look after yourself. What a week it has been.' I knew instantly what he was talking about. He said:

Meryl, can I just tell you a quick story? A number of years back I went to the cricket. I was in the members. I don't get to the members very often, but in the break I stood up and I was stretching, and as I spun around the bloke behind me was having a stretch as well. It was John Howard. He was the Prime Minister, and in that moment I thought, how great is Australia? Here I am at the cricket with the Prime Minister. I know it was a few years back, but that's my Australia. That's the Australia I want. I want my political representatives to be in my community with me. On the whole, you all do a hard job and a pretty good job, but you can't stop turning up for us.

Amidst all the horror and all the sadness from what happened to Helen Haines last week, that conversation has stuck with me. That is the Australia we all want, and it's not some nostalgic harking back to days gone by. We know the world has changed. We know the world moves more rapidly, but we have to strive for that Australia. We can't lose Australia. We're not America, we're not Europe, we're not any other country. We are Australia and we are representing Australians, and we must strive for that. We cannot lose sight of it.

In this country, we can disagree about politics. We can vote for different parties, support different leaders and hold very differing views about the direction the country should take. That's not a weakness in democracy; it's our greatest strength. We have a long history of robust political debate in Australia, and I can't help but think of Paul Keating and some of the things he said in this very chamber. Some of them were quite incredible, but they never ascribed for a human being to be violent. Some of them were pretty acerbic and, as the member for Ryan points out, there's been some pretty robust debate over the years. We shouldn't shy away from that either, but it shouldn't lead to someone being mown down.

People have brought gender into this, and I know that women do face more threats and more violent threats. But I want to say not one man, woman or otherwise in this building could withstand being ploughed down by a Toyota Landcruiser. This is not about your gender. This is about humanity. We are all humans and we all put up our hand to serve. We do so willingly, knowing that it's a tough job. We've got to come here. We've got to have the disagreements because we want to strive for a better country. What we have here is precious. How we do this thing called politics does matter. We've got to keep doing it. We shouldn't shy away from it, but it is also important that we reflect what people expect out in our communities, and that's what I hear all the time when I talk to people. They want to hear good ideas. They want to hear passion. They don't want us to resile away from the hard conversations. But they expect us to do a good job for them, and, in return, I think most people in this place expect that they should turn up and do a good job. That's what we need to be striving for. So let the passion come. Let's have respectful debate, but also let's continue to strive to be the best versions of ourselves, both here politically and privately, that we can.

Dr Helen Haines, the independent federal member for Indi and my friend, was supposed to be here in this chamber delivering this speech, and I feel honoured that her team, specifically Chiara from her team, graciously trusted me to take Helen's place in this debate and speak for our friend while she is unable to do so. We're here to call out the urgent need to prevent political violence and to foster constructive and respectful public discourse. If now is not the time that we will heed expert advice and data, I ask when that time will be.

In his 2025 annual threat assessment, ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess warned the country that the risk of politically motivated violence was 'already flashing red'. He's told us repeatedly that the words that we use matter. The McKinnon Institute recently reported that nine per cent of Australians believe that political violence is sometimes justified. In the last financial year, there were over 1,000 reports of threats to high office holders, federal parliamentarians, dignitaries and electorate offices around the country. That number has almost doubled in four years. Almost 90 per cent of women in politics have experienced online abuse or intimidation. A recent study by the University of Melbourne found that hostile attitudes towards women and the belief that violence against women is acceptable predict support for extremist violence more strongly than political ideology, religion or time spent online. If we want to combat rising extremism and division in our society, if we want to protect both our democracy and those who seek to represent it, we must address political violence, abuse and harassment in this country.

Firstly, social media has become a hotbed for rhetoric and violent threats. Algorithms reward outrage. Outrage keeps us scrolling. We must legislate a strong and enforceable digital duty of care which gets rid of impulse farming and the protections of anonymity.

Secondly, we must secure a new national mental health and suicide prevention agreement. Vulnerable people are moving to the regions of Australia because housing in our cities is unaffordable. We spend five times more on mental health care for those who live in major cities than we do on those who live in very remote settings, although those people in the regions have more emergency department presentations, more self-harm and higher suicide rates. Services are scant and overwhelmed in the regions, and the cost of our inaction always falls hardest on those people who live in areas where services are scarce. Just this week, researchers reported that about one in three homicides in Victoria in 2024 and 2025 were committed by people with psychosis. That's up from one in 10 a decade ago. If we don't look after those people who are acutely unwell, our whole society suffers. Helen Haines has advocated for a new hospital for Albury-Wodonga, for more mental health beds, for more training positions for healthcare professionals in the regions. We're asking the government to act with urgency on the mental healthcare crisis in our rural and regional centres.

Finally, we do need to set the standard in this chamber, in this parliament, in our public life. Our security leaders have told us that there are direct correlations between inflamed language, inflamed tensions and acts of violence. If we seek to lead, we seek to influence other people with what we say, how we think and how we act. So I ask my colleagues: if you're seeking to lead, shouldn't you consider how your words will affect those people who follow you? In 2023, in this House, Helen commented:

What we say in this place matters. Words matter.

She was the first Australian politician to sign the Civility Pledge, which says:

In my political life, I pledge to act with honesty, respect, and compassion.

It doesn't seem that much to ask. I've signed the pledge, and so have many of my crossbench colleagues, and we invite every member of this House to do so.

Helen, we're thinking of you, Phil, your family, your wonderful team and the people of Indi. Yours is the most measured and generous of voices in the chamber. It's missing from the chamber today. Your absence is felt deeply by us all, but you continue to inspire us and we will continue your work until you return.

My thanks to the member for Bradfield for bringing on this very important discussion and to the member for Kooyong for highlighting the advocacy of the member for Indi. I know, as we all expressed yesterday, how much we all want to see the member for Indi in the place of that cockatoo just there. What happened to the member for Indi was horrific. It shouldn't have happened to anyone in our community. There is no doubt that the temperature of our political debate and the temperature of our national debate has risen in recent years. We all feel that in here, and we all have a responsibility to do our part in trying to bring that down. We can agree to disagree with respect. We can agree that we will not always see eye to eye on political issues, but we can do so in a way that is civil and allows us to still see our common humanity and our common connections of community and country, the things that the member for Indi advocated for and that I know so many of us bring to this place when we do come here to do our work and to have our debates.

I also know that it's not just members of parliament who feel this increase in the temperature. We see it when we walk into our shopping centres with the signs that say: 'Please treat our staff with respect. People are here to work.' This is happening across our community—that frontline workers are facing too much abuse and, unfortunately, potential violence. So, as I said, the responsibility is on all of us.

I have noticed in my seven years now in this place a change in the way that conversations happen. I used to find that, when I had a disagreement or when someone came to me with a point of view that was different to, say, mine or my political party's or the government's point of view, we could have a conversation about that. We might, at the end of that conversation, agree to disagree, but we would both walk away knowing that we had respected each other. What I tend to find happens too often now is that people come to me not to have a conversation but to deliver to me what they've made their mind up on. It seems to me that that's because they've already had the conversation. They've had the conversation on their phone, in their algorithm. They're not looking to have the conversation with me or another member of parliament. They're not even looking to have a physical conversation with another member of our community. They've been pushed by an algorithm into a certain point of view that gets reinforced over and over again.

We know that too often these algorithms are pushing people to extreme points of view. That is what drives engagement on these platforms. That is where people are being pushed in their opinions and how they come to then engage with us and, more broadly, with the community. That is why I think it is so important that we do have a digital duty of care in this country, and that is why this government is bringing this forward. We cannot continue to have foreign owned tech companies profiting off spreading division in our communities, and that is what is happening at the moment. We have tech billionaires who are feeding discontent across our community. It is on all of us to act on this. I'm very aware that legislation alone won't prevent political violence, but we must hold these platforms to account.

I am also very aware that the need for mental health support for many in our community is real and that both federal and state governments are investing in this space. But I very much hear the words of the member for Indi and others when they say that there are people in regional communities and elsewhere who are still missing out on the support they should get in this space. We do need to be aware that, again, sometimes the people who are presenting to us, the people who are presenting to our offices, come with complex lives. They come with many things that are coming at them that they want to talk to us about. We hope we can have those conversations in safety. We hope our staff can have those conversations in safety. But we must also have systems set up to support people—mental health systems and systems that allow people to live lives free of poverty so that they can come and have those conversations with us in a respectful way. Improving public discourse and improving safety—that is something that matters to all of us in this place. It matters to our country. We have a dear friend and colleague who is suffering at the moment and who has a long road back to being here with us. We all want to see her back. We all want to make sure that we are taking this moment to improve how we come together as a country and as communities.

In the last sitting week Helen Haines and I sat together on the crossbench during a division. We talked about how important it is in this job to look after our health. Helen told me how much she was looking forward to at the end of the year, to slowing down and spending time with her family. None of us imagined that days later she would be fighting for her life. Helen is alive, and her condition is improving. Her husband Phil has told us that her heart and her mind remain strong. Anyone who knows Helen knows that to be true. She has spent her life caring for others as a nurse, as a midwife, as a researcher and as a representative.

Now it is our turn to care for her. My thoughts are with Phil, their family, Helen's staff and the people of Wangaratta and across Indi. In a regional community where people know one another, grief does not stop at one front door. It reaches into many homes. I thank the bystanders, paramedics and medical teams who came to Helen's aid. A great deal has been said this past week about what happened to Helen and what it means for us. Before this becomes a story about us, let us give Helen, her family and her community room to heal and leave the facts to the police and the courts.

I thank the member for Bradfield for this matter. Violence, threats and intimidation have no place in our democracy, whoever is targeted, and we've seen political violence in places and what it can do to communities and to countries. We've seen that in Gaza, the West Bank, Yemen, Syria, and, of course, currently in France. But prevention cannot only be about protecting ourselves, our offices and our online spaces. Those matter, but if this conversation begins and ends with us, we will have missed something. Prevention must also be about what happens in our communities long before anything reaches a crisis.

I'm not speaking about any individual case. Most people living with mental illness are never violent and are far more likely to be harmed than to harm others. But there's a hard truth we have avoided. Over decades we rightly move people with severe mental illness out of institutions and into the community. What we never fully built was the community care to go with it. For someone living with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or psychosis, a phone line is not enough. They need a psychiatrist who follows up, medication that is monitored, stable housing and someone who notices when things are slipping.

When that care falls away, the person suffers first. Their family suffers and sometimes, tragically, so do innocent people. Two and a half years ago, six people were killed at Westfield Bondi Junction. The New South Wales coroner found the man responsible had received good care for years, but, when warning signs of relapse appeared, they were not acted on. For nearly five years he was effectively lost to follow up. So whose responsibility is that?

Today, the honest answer is that government should be taking responsibility, but they are not. The Commonwealth funds GPs and psychologists. The state runs hospitals and crisis teams. People with severe mental illness fall into the gap between them, what experts called the missing middle. The Productivity Commission found the National Mental Health Agreement is not effective and the system is fragmented and out of reach for many. It wants a new agreement in place by June 2027. That is our window, and the Commonwealth must lead.

I ask the government to do three things. First, make someone clearly responsible with funding attached for community care for people with severe mental illness so no-one is discharged into nothing. Second, guarantee follow up. When someone leaves hospital, stops treatment or drops out of care, there must be a clinician whose job it is to notice and act. Third, make the care reachable in communities like Fowler, where around three in four people speak a language other than English at home. That means interpreters, culturally appropriate care and support for families who are often the first to see the warning signs and the last to know where to turn. None of this replaces responding to credible threats or enforcing the law, nor does it excuse us from how we conduct ourselves. We can argue firmly without humiliating each other and challenge a policy without encouraging hatred of the person behind it. Helen has always shown us how. Let us take it seriously for ourselves and for every family in every community we represent.

Last Friday, I went to visit St Aidan's. It's a girls' school in my local electorate, on Brisbane's south side in the suburb of Corinda. I went there to talk about democracy. While we were there, I talked with them about the Greek origins of demos kratos. We spoke about the importance of robust debate. We role-played what we do in this place. When I asked if there were any questions at the end, their eyes brightened and a sea of arms shot up into the air. We didn't talk about political violence, and I hope for a world, when they grow up, where they won't have to.

I want to thank the member for Bradfield very much for bringing this important debate to this place. It's important, particularly in a year when we've seen 1,067 incidents of harassing or threatening behaviour toward members of parliament. But can I boldly say that I believe it to be incomplete, because violence and threats are not exclusive to this chamber. Violence and threats are increasing across our community. We see it with school teachers going to a place where young people are to learn. We see it with nurses going to hospitals to look after our most unwell. We see it with ambos coming to people at a time of emergency, and we see it in shops and retail where people are simply going to do their job. No-one should ever go to work and experience threats. No-one should ever go to work and expect to see violence. At its core, it poses a very important question for us as a nation: who are we and who do we seek to be? Those primary values that we hold so dear—of respect, of a fair go, of dignity—sit at a massive mismatch to what we are seeing right now.

That's why our government has been talking for a long time about turning that temperature down and about the link that exists between what happens in the public discourse and violence that we have seen in our communities. I do want to mention the provision of the additional $17 million to protective services and electorate offices. I do want to mention the National Security Investigations teams set up to investigate those threats. I do want to mention the 41 individuals that have been charged and the parliamentary workplace support services we have developed with specialised training including safety training.

We are a country of robust debate. That's important here. But robust debate cannot and certainly does not negate accountability. Robust debate does not negate respect. Robust debate does not negate being kind to one another every day, whether that be in the flesh or online. We know that threats are increasing online. We know that the landscape that our children will face is a different one to the one that we grew up on. It's why a digital duty of care is so important. If big tech can spend billions of dollars to get you hooked, they should be able to save you from harm. When we talk about civility and constructive discourse, it's often hard to define. But it's easy to spot. We saw it yesterday in those words about Helen. At a time when our thoughts and our prayers are with her, her family, her community and her staff, we feel the collective weight of the realities of that violence, and we will continue to work with the expert agencies to keep people safe and to keep this place respectful so that those girls in State Aidan's and all Australian children will inherit something better than what we have now.

I'm definitely out of step with people in this place. My reaction when I heard this—I just can't get what happened to her out of my head—was entirely different. All I could think of was getting at that b— in that car and kicking him to death in the street, right? Kicking him to death may be a little bit extreme, but it's my rage and anger against that person. I am sick and tired, again and again, of hearing exculpatory explanations for behaviour. Scott Morrison had it dead right in that dreadful case where the person killed his three kids. He said this is not about exculpatory explanations for their behaviour or analysing how he got to this point. It is simply about good and evil, and, if our society has lost something of enormous value, it is our Christianity. I don't mean going to church on Sunday. That's not what I'm talking about. You have an inbuilt sense of good and evil. This is evil. The murder of those three children was evil. Don't talk to me about explanations for their behaviour or analysing what forces were at work here.

Once you move away from that good and evil and go into the area—and I make no apologies for saying this—that people have been going to in this place, then you are in desperately bad trouble. I am entitled to my rage and my sense of violence against the person that did this. I don't care about your exculpatory explanations. I'm not interested in that. This bloke tried to kill a friend of mine—another person, but in this case a friend of mine—and I know what my reaction would have been if I'd been there at the time. I say this with rage and anger. If you think you can make people good and if you say there is a rising sense of violence, the first time I set foot in this chamber was up there in the gallery. I was visiting my father. I thought I'd just look in on it. Jim Cairns left the front bench and ran around to bash Billy Wentworth, and three people were needed to restrain him from bashing Billy Wentworth. Don't say violence is new. In the state parliament on three occasions there were brawls. In one brawl I thought that McPhie had killed the bloke, and he thought he had as well! He played front row for Australia, and he was down giving him resuscitation because he thought he killed him as well. But the other bloke threw the punch. Violence from where I come from is not new at all. In fact, these days it's very, very peaceful compared with Jim Cairns racing across the chamber trying to bash Billy Wentworth. 'Hello to federal parliament, Bobby Katter!'

I want to return to the good and evil. Scott Morrison, if he did nothing else, was dead right. This is not about explanations as to why he behaved this way. This is about good and evil. The person that murdered his three kids is evil, right? Unless we have this right and wrong, evil and good—and Helen was an excellent example of good. I'm not talking about religion here or anything of that nature. There are some people that are Christian in the general sense of the word. They work hard for other people and they're prepared to sacrifice themselves for other people. The person that did that—I'm just different from other people. I mean, it wouldn't have been good for me to have been there, I suppose, if I'd witnessed it.

When we ask, 'how do we overcome these problems?' let it be known that, if you do something like this, then we will come down on you like a ton of bricks. Let's have you understand that—and then you might be able to stop doing what you're doing. (Time expired)

When we refer to political discourse, what we mean is the way in which language is used in the discipline of politics. That's how language is used in speeches, campaign materials, policy documents and debate to influence public opinion and decision making. Political discourse frames how issues are communicated and therefore how they are understood and how they are acted upon. Political discourse tells us not only about the policy agenda but about the strategies that politicians use to persuade, justify actions and gain support, but the purpose is often lost amongst analysis of the form and content. We say repeatedly that healthy and robust political discourse is a core feature of a well-functioning democracy and that we need it, we'll lose without it and we mustn't prevent or restrict it. That is right, because healthy political discourse can help to deliver many benefits to society.

There's no definitive blueprint for what healthy and quality political discourse looks like—it's different for many people—but the concern in this country is that what qualifies as acceptable political discourse is being infected by ever-present and dangerous scope creep where political discourse involving high-quality considered ideas is being replaced by poor-quality arguments based around sledging, saying 'no' for no's sake and populist vibes. There is no question that high-quality political discourse is under strain and that unhealthy, unproductive discourse is growing. Because unhealthy, unproductive political discourse has the potential to inflict great damage, we all have a responsibility.

I am not for a minute saying that politicians are solely responsible or that they have all the tools in the toolkit to address this issue, but there are things that we in this place and the other place can do to ensure a high standard of political discourse in Parliament House and out in our communities. Firstly, we can start by recognising that everyone in this House has shown something—displayed a quality, or multiple qualities—to their communities such that they got elected through a democratic process that is the envy of the world. We know that everyone worked hard to get here and that they have been chosen to be here by the Australian people who make up their communities.

Secondly, we should recognise that every political party and member of the crossbench actually have an 'Australia first' agenda. The agendas, the pathways and the policies may be different in terms of application and quality, but in their own way they all seek to put Australia first. No-one in this House, no political party, is out to ruin Australia or disadvantage the Australian people, and we need to stop saying that. Thirdly, vibes and slogans are catchy, but they need to be built on a foundation of evidence and data. Preparation for debate, careful consideration of the counterarguments and then the development of a persuasive position based on evidence is what produces high-quality political discourse. Why do we need it? Because the most important beneficiary is the voter, their families and their communities.

A few important questions: Will this speech I'm about to give benefit my community? Does this letterbox flyer give accurate information that my community needs? Is my social media post designed to offend or to inform? Does the question I'm asking in question time, or the answer I'm giving in question time, put the voter in a better, more informed position than before the question was asked or answered? Can I explain the policy rationale for doing something or changing something or not doing something? Can I explain why the opposition's policy offering is inferior, or am I just saying that? High-quality political discourse requires work and it requires preparation. It requires a proper consideration of different perspectives. It requires us to drop bad points and pursue credible ones. We must do this, because the Australian people deserve high-quality public and political discourse that leads to bipartisan action. If we don't provide this, people will turn to dangerously poor and ill-informed sources of information, and they will make their choice at the ballot box on that basis. So let's do the work.

I rise in support of the motion moved by the member for Bradfield, and I thank her for moving it. Yesterday I spoke about the member for Indi. Today I want to talk about the bigger picture, because the attack on Helen happened in a climate that has been escalating. Political violence reaches well beyond this building. Police officers have been killed by people with antigovernment beliefs. Places of worship have been attacked. Journalists, councillors and public servants face threats and intimidation for doing their jobs. ASIO now says politically motivated violence is one of its principal security concerns.

I've been thinking a lot about why this is happening. One reason is that we now spend less time in the places where we would interact and form relationships with people who disagree with us, like churches, sporting clubs, even workplaces. It's now quite easy to get through the week mixing only with people who agree with us. Much of our conversations about difficult issues have moved online, where algorithms reward outrage. Short videos favour heroes and villains, and there isn't much space for nuance or compromise. Trust is also low: around four in 10 Australians are dissatisfied with how our democracy is working. When people feel nobody is listening, frustration can harden into distrust of institutions, and sometimes into hostility towards the people who represent them.

We don't know what might have prevented this attack, but there are some things we can work on now. This week we're debating the digital duty of care, which I've been calling for. A duty of care starts to change the outrage that's good for the business of the social media platforms. Law enforcement and mental health services need to share information better so warning signs are picked up early. We need to look after the people who work in our electorate offices, who are often the first to cop that abuse. Importantly, we need to teach young people how to disagree well.

On the civics education inquiry, I heard that many teachers are wary of raising controversial topics for fear of being accused of pushing their own politics. This needs to change. The Scanlon Foundation puts it well: problems start when we treat our view as the right view rather than simply a view. There's an exercise I run with my year 11 youth advisory group to help demonstrate this. I ask each student to pick an issue they care about and then build the best possible version of the opposing argument. It's a good reminder that reasonable people can look at the same material and disagree.

We also need to look at how we behave in this place. Despite the fact that almost all the issues we debate in here have decent arguments on both sides, I don't think I've ever heard one side of this House genuinely concede that the other has a decent argument. Imagine how refreshing that would be! When MPs treat each other as enemies, it shouldn't surprise us when people outside do the same. In her first speech, Helen said that the people of Indi chose to use their voice not to drown out the voices of others but to hear the voices of others. I'd like to see this sentiment reflected in the way we all engage, particularly in this House. Disagreeing well is a skill that can be taught and improves with practice. Here in the parliament, we must start by setting an example.

Respectful debate belongs to all of us, and it's stronger when we all help build it—at home, at school, at work and online. We must all start by seeing the person behind the opposing view and remembering that no disagreement, however strongly felt, can ever justify violence.

The time for this discussion has now concluded.