00:02Well, I think there's just a real sense of shock, disbelief that this would happen in
00:06Australia, but real shock that it would happen here, and especially to someone like Helen
00:11Haynes, who is pretty moderate.
00:14In fact, everyone we have met this morning has said, look, even if I don't agree with
00:17her politics, I think that she is a pretty decent middle-of-the-road person.
00:22You might be able to see behind me.
00:23Throughout the morning, we've had quite a few people come down and start leaving flowers.
00:27There are some candles that were lit just inside Helen's office as well.
00:32In fact, if the cameras weren't here, I imagine many more people would have already left tributes.
00:38There has been a pretty big media presence, because this incident, Gemma, happened really
00:42just a couple of metres away.
00:45And as you mentioned a little earlier, witnesses here, the Prime Minister has also said this,
00:51have basically described a man driving past here, doing a U-turn, and then appearing to
00:56deliberately drive at Helen, just over here, while she was at the back of her car yesterday
01:02afternoon.
01:03Now, we spoke to a number of people throughout our show this morning who know Helen personally.
01:08She was a big figure in the medical community.
01:10She's lived in this area for a really long time before she entered politics.
01:15Here's some of what they had to say.
01:17I think it's, everybody in town will be shocked, everyone in the area will be shocked, and
01:22it really casts the area in a very unfair light, because we're really dealing with a very, very,
01:30very small minority of people who have just got viewpoints that are bizarre.
01:36So, as I'm concerned, the majority, the vast majority of people here are great folk.
01:41It's a fantastic community.
01:44Yeah, it's, oh, I really, I can't understand it at all.
01:50So that's just a small snapshot of the people who have been speaking to the media this morning.
01:55Just a real sense of shock, Gemma, and I think it's going to take quite a while for people
02:01to come to terms with it here, and unsurprisingly, I mean, we've heard this before, but unsurprisingly,
02:07a lot of people here are saying, well, this should really be a turning point, a moment
02:10where politicians, leaders in communities try to turn the tone and the temperature of
02:16debate down a bit.
02:17In any political thing, there's a bit of barge-barge goes on, and they're feeling like
02:20that, like everything like that.
02:21But it's just the general respect that she's independent, and the community voted her in.
02:29The whole electorate voted her in.
02:33James, what sort of reaction have we had from other political leaders?
02:38Yeah, we've heard from the Prime Minister, as you mentioned, we heard from Tony Burke earlier.
02:42On our show, we also had a number of politicians who'd worked really closely with Helen Haynes,
02:48and pretty much universally, they said that she was amongst the best of them, someone who
02:53always sought to get things done and work in the interests of her local community.
02:59Independent Senator David Pocock was one of many who was just really quite upset that
03:06this had happened.
03:07Here's what he had to say to us.
03:09Oh, it's absolutely a wake-up call.
03:12You know, as a male parliamentarian, you get some threats, you get, you know, the angry
03:18phone calls, the awful emails, the anonymous comments, but I think we've got to look at
03:24what's happening to female politicians and just the ridiculous amount of threats and abuse
03:32that they have to cop.
03:33And Australians, as Australians, we need to stand up and say, this is not okay.
03:36This is not what we want as a country.
03:40And we all have a role to play in actually not just calling that out, but changing the
03:46way that we engage in politics.
03:49That is Independent Senator David Pocock.
03:51And the Prime Minister, when he spoke to me, Gemma, was pretty noncommittal about whether
03:57or not there'd be extra security for politicians.
04:00Of course, most politicians don't want to have to be walking around with bodyguards and things
04:05like that.
04:05But it does take my mind back to an assassination that happened in the United Kingdom that I
04:09covered more than a decade ago.
04:11A Labor MP, Joe Cox, was killed after meeting constituents in her electorate just before
04:16the Brexit referendum.
04:18And that led to a very big discussion about how politicians interact with their communities,
04:22what sort of security they need.
04:24And it would seem that there'll at least be some discussion about whether certain things
04:29need to be ramped up.
04:30But yeah, just a really, really shocking incident.
04:34And everyone here in Wangaratta, and indeed I'm sure in Canberra as well, is hoping for
04:38the best for Helen Haynes.
