Anthony Albanese wants the country to calm down. In a column published on Thursday under the headline urging Australians to reject political hatred, the Prime Minister described the attack on Indi independent Helen Haines as "a test of our national character" and offered a prescription for the rest of us: "We need genuine debate. We need more respect. More kindness. More listening and less shouting."

He went further, warning that Australians "must be able to do this without challenging or questioning the loyalty to Australia of those who have a different perspective," and that "there is more than enough cruelty, violence and hatred in the world without us adding to it." If Australians want a role model, he wrote, "we need only to look to Helen Haines."

Nobody disputes the sentiment about Haines. She was struck by a vehicle outside her Wangaratta electorate office on Monday and her husband Phil has since said doctors could not save either of her legs. Tarrawingee man Brendan Nugent, 43, has been charged over the attack and remains in custody. The charges have not been tested in court.

What the Prime Minister's column leaves out is just as telling. Rebel News has reported that the X account @NotLaoTzu, which Rebel News understands belongs to the man arrested, spent years backing climate causes, reposting Greens MPs and supporting Haines herself, then cheered the 7 October breach of the Gaza border as it happened, waved away the atrocities that followed and amplified Hamas's own booklet on the massacre. It is a far-left, pro-Hamas feed, and nothing in it has anything to do with One Nation. Albanese, like much of the left that spent Monday night blaming Pauline Hanson, has had nothing to say about it.

The trouble is the messenger. Only weeks before the attack, the Prime Minister's own office was circulating a document that invited journalists to look into the very woman he now holds up as the national example.

The briefing note, revealed by the Daily Mail on Tuesday, was circulated to selected members of the press gallery after Haines criticised the $6 million federal grant handed to Marrickville Golf Club in Albanese's own electorate. It catalogued her funding requests for Indi, noting she had sought more than $1.8 billion across two budget submissions, and then invited reporters to dig. Had she accepted undeclared wine or food from local businesses? Did she hold business interests? Had she ever visited, donated to or known anyone on the board of the Benalla Art Gallery, for which she sought $8 million? It even raised Mount Buller ski lift passes she and her husband received. The document offered no evidence of wrongdoing of any kind.

The file's metadata lists "Lloyd, Joshua", the Prime Minister's deputy director of communications, as both creator and last editor, with a creation date of 10 September, the day after Haines publicly attacked pork barrelling. The Daily Mail was careful to note that metadata alone does not prove who wrote or authorised it. Haines herself, shown the document at the time, said: "They are pretty desperate."

So much for not questioning people's motives. On ABC's 7.30 on Monday night, Albanese said political differences "shouldn't be the subject of personal rancour and the calling into people's motivation where it's not appropriate to do so." A month earlier, his office circulated a document doing exactly that to Haines.

When News24's Kieran Gilbert asked him directly on Wednesday whether he knew about or approved the document, the Prime Minister answered a different question. "Helen Haines is a good local member," he said. Pressed on whether he regretted it, he pivoted to the Coalition's election commitments. Questions sent to his communications director Fiona Sugden, and then to chief of staff Tim Gartrell, asking who prepared and authorised the document, have gone unanswered.

Moment Albanese dodges question about role he played in Helen Haines dirt file that left independent MP 'disgusted' before alleged attack: 'That's not an answer' https://t.co/OVIf9fsakg

— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) October 21, 2026

Then there is the shouting. In the same News24 interview, Gilbert put it to Albanese that he had called Opposition Leader Angus Taylor an "idiot" in a recent interview and asked whether everyone needed to do better. "Of course we do," the Prime Minister replied, before moving on to vigils and urging people to "be like Helen". He did not dispute the characterisation. This is also the Prime Minister who in 2024 asked Taylor during question time whether he had Tourette syndrome, and later apologised for the "hurtful" remark.

His treatment of One Nation tells the same story. At the Queensland Labor conference on 30 August, Albanese accused "hard right populists" of politics that is "dangerous, divisive, and downright dishonest," told delegates "we simply must defeat them," and claimed One Nation thinks "domestic violence is sometimes a woman's fault." On 15 October, days before Haines was hurt, he told a multicultural conference that "anyone who can look in the rear-vision mirror and see a monoculture should get themselves down to the nearest Specsavers," a jab at Pauline Hanson.

Hanson has not let it pass. "Get rid of your dirt file that goes on against parliamentarians, including my party," she told News24 on Tuesday. "It comes from the top. Tone it down yourself."

Parliament returns next week. The Prime Minister's office has still not said who authorised the Haines document, whether Albanese knew of it, or what evidence supported its insinuations, and those questions remain on the table for him.

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