Key Facts & Findings

• —Hostility from constituents is not new for the state’s politicians, including its premiers.
• —But the alleged attack on Helen Haines has sent a chill down the collective spineGet our new political email, free app or daily news podcastOn Monday night, Georgie Purcell shared a statement on social media in support of Helen Haines, who earlier that day had been allegedly attacked by a constituent in her regional Victorian electorate.Purcell, a Victorian upper house MP whose region partly overlaps with Haines’s federal electorate, wrote that the alleged attack had sent chills down her spine.
• —Being a woman in politics, she said, had changed the way she moved through the world – where she parked her car, which route she took home, even whether she held public events at all.