When we went to Melbourne's October 7 vigil, the point was simple. Somebody had to show Victorians who was really taking over their streets on the anniversary of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and the ABC certainly wasn't going to. What we didn't expect was to find a senior Victorian Government official in the middle of it.

First, the update so many of you have been waiting for. After you shared the footage and flooded Victoria Police with complaints, and after our legal team lodged its own, the force has launched an internal investigation into what happened that day. That includes the officer who grabbed me by the throat and the repeated threats to arrest me while I was doing my job as a journalist. We've asked for an apology, appropriate disciplinary action and proper training so frontline officers understand their duty to protect journalists. If they deliver, good. If they don't, we'll take it further.

While police investigate their own, we ran an investigation of ours. You may remember the woman who walked up and told me I wasn't welcome in a public space. After we published that footage, a tipster recognised her, and our digging has identified her as Ameera Katar. According to our investigation, she was on the Melbourne University team that designed Victoria's COVID public health response, the same response that wrecked so many livelihoods across this state, and she has since landed a senior role at Emergency Management Victoria.

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That made us go back through every frame of every camera, and what we found is far worse than a rude exchange. The footage appears to show her repeatedly encouraging protesters to push into me and my security team, and appearing to keep urging them on even as the crowd turned violent. At one point she picked up an umbrella the mob had been shoving into my guards' faces, and rather than moving it aside, the footage shows her using it to strike them.

A public servant doing that to a Australian-Jewish journalist, at a vigil commemorating terrorists that Premier Ben Carroll had publicly condemned, raises serious questions for his government. We put those questions to Emergency Management Victoria, and to its credit, it has committed to an investigation. We intend to hold it to that promise, just as we will with Victoria Police.

None of this reporting happens without protection. I had six security guards with me that day and needed every one of them, and that costs thousands of dollars every time we hit the streets. If you believe journalists have the right to report from public places without being intimidated by protesters, police or government officials, please chip in at ProtectAvi.com. Victorians deserve to know who is being trusted with power, and ProtectAvi.com is how we keep finding out.