Governor-General Sam Mostyn has urged Australians to unite behind a new era of decency and civility following the attack on federal independent MP Helen Haines on Monday. Source: The Australian.
In a landmark address yesterday, Ms Mostyn said Australians needed to learn how to “disagree well” and to learn or to “re-learn to exercise our muscle of decency”, calling on people to work together in the wake of Dr Haines’s tragedy.
Speaking before Ms Mostyn, Dr Haines’s husband, Phil Haines, drawing on his wife’s fighting spirit, detailed how she had lost both legs after she was attacked outside her electorate office on Monday, in one of the worst incidents in Australian political history.
Ms Mostyn urged the nation to embrace an ethical framework that shunned violence and enabled reasonable, productive debate.
In what amounted to a call for a more peaceful and civil national conversation, she said the country needed to be able to debate and disagree over important issues, calling on the good nature of people to steer a new path.
“Australians have good hearts, great hearts, and checking each of ourselves to ensure that we are, in fact, disagreeing well, not fighting with one another, not descending into violence and chaos and division,’’ Ms Mostyn said at The Alfred hospital in Melbourne where Dr Haines is recovering.
“Most importantly, that we learn or relearn to exercise our muscle of decency.
“Australians are yearning for kindness and care. And they’re asking us why we’ve lost the great skill of disagreeing well and with decency to each other. Our democracy, the great Australian democracy, has always relied on passionate and robust debate.”
Speaking alongside Dr Haines’s husband of 40 years, Ms Mostyn recalled the approach of her predecessors Zelman Cowen and William Deane, and said Australians tended to embrace a spirit of generosity during times of national tragedy.
Her comments followed a chorus of concern among national leaders after Monday’s tragedy about Australia’s direction in an often angry, post-pandemic, social media-fuelled political landscape.
Mr Haines revealed the extent of his wife’s injuries, but, he said Dr Haines’s two most important parts were her “heart” and her “mind” and the good news was that she was alive and stable.
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Governor-General Sam Mostyn calls for unity after Helen Haines attack (By John Ferguson, Thomas Henry, Lily McCaffrey and Mohammad Alfares, The Australian)
