At a glance…
- Content Warning: This article discusses topics which may be upsetting to readers.
- The alleged attack on independent MP Dr Helen Haines has left her North East Victorian community reeling, with residents describing a palpable sense of shock and grief.
- Speaking to The Australian Women’s Weekly, local women share how the incident has affected their sense of safety, while revealing the deeply personal connections they have with Helen.
- As Helen recovers in hospital, the Wangaratta community is rallying around her and her family, united in hope for her recovery.
At the beginning of October 2026, Federal Member for Indi Dr Helen Haines kept her annual 10 am meeting with Wangaratta Show secretary Charmane Bennett, touring exhibits including the children’s section she sponsors.
Helen met volunteers and exhibitors and walked through her community in North East Victoria like any normal day. The following week she took the opportunity to speak about the show, and Charmane’s contribution, in Parliament in Canberra, in what would be one of her final speeches there for some time. Then everything changed.
On 19 October, Helen was allegedly rammed intentionally with a vehicle outside her Wangaratta office. In the following days, surgeons had to amputate both of her legs, shocking the entire nation.
Charmane, who lives at Everton Upper, 25km from Wangaratta, shares that a sombreness has descended on the town.
“It’s palpable. It’s like Wangaratta has suffered this massive shock and loss, and it’s in the atmosphere. It’s everywhere you go around town. People walking down the street, you can feel it,” she tells The Weekly.
“The feeling is also about supporting Helen, making sure that we, as a community, rally together and put our energy into that.”
Charmane’s latest community work is helping organise a location for the Red Cross to dry all the flowers left for the Haines family out the front of the office.
Both women have lived in the community a long time. Helen was a midwife when Charmane had her children. But it was after Helen became the federal member and Charmane took on the show role that they really connected.
She was deeply honoured when Helen mentioned her and Bev Tiffin by name in Parliament.
“It just blew me away,” Charmane shares. “Just mentioning the Wangaratta Show was such a huge buzz. But then for her to mention Bev and I by name … that feeling that she gives you, that what you give to the community is not just in the background and not just unseen. That she notices you.
“When I first saw that video, it was like Christmas. Then to go to the devastation of Monday, the absolute opposite, has been soul crushing and so heartbreaking.”
She adds politics was far from people’s minds across North East Victoria.
“Everyone is just thinking about the person she is, the welcoming, hugely kind and caring person that she is,” Charmane says.
“Those wonderful people that raced across the street and put themselves in unknown harm’s way to make sure that she was okay are absolute Godsend. If that had happened in Melbourne, how many people would have rushed up to help, or would they have stood there with their phones, gawking and videoing? That’s the community of Wangaratta. That’s her Indi. Her Indi family.”
Rural City of Wangaratta Mayor Irene Grant was proud of, but not surprised by, the community’s response.
“I really probably thought that this is the way we would do it, because at the end of the day people are good and people are decent and this has affronted their decency,” Cr Irene Grant says. As a female leader, she is always conscious of safety.
“The really awful thing about it is that no safety measure or security measure would have made any difference to what happened to her. But yes, it does make you think about how to be safe.”
Tarrawingee resident and psychologist Melissa Land, of Her Space Psychology, said some community members were struggling to understand the depth of their distress.
She shares that violence in your own community could be expected to cause some emotional distress, whether you knew Helen or not.
“We are people who care about people, and it’s happened in our community, so you can expect to have some kind of an emotional reaction, and that’s okay over a couple of days, but you would expect that to settle down,” Melissa explains.
“What feels different about this incident, against the backdrop of everything else we’re exposed to and gendered violence, is the fact that Helen’s a woman, and I think that has added to the distress.”
The same message keeps coming up from women in the community and in her practice. They were having trouble switching off news updates because “I just need to know that she’s okay”.
She adds that people may also notice changes to their sleep and appetite.
“But if it doesn’t go away after a few days, that’s the threshold where you would hope that people would reach out for support.”
Melissa has been advising those impacted to keep their normal routines and take breaks from the media. Residents of Tarrawingee, where the alleged driver Brendan Nugent lived, have been hit particularly hard. On that Monday night, reporters were doorknocking at 11pm, an act which distressed residents already on edge.
The Tarrawingee Facebook page was also flooded with new join requests, prompting the administrator, with the support of Melissa, to stop accepting new requests.
Steve Manning, the Voices for Ovens Valley-endorsed candidate in the upcoming Victorian election, shares that Helen’s husband Phil was door-knocking for him at the time of the attack.
“It’s been a really hard week. There’s a lot of devastation, a lot of numbness and a lot of distress,” Steve admits.
His volunteer hub in Murphy Street, just up from Helen’s office, normally opens two hours a day. This week it has been open all day, every day, “to allow people to come and have a cry and have a hug, and just to sit and talk with one another”.
He adds Helen, his mentor, had shown him around Parliament in Canberra the week before the incident.
“I got to spend two days walking the halls of Parliament with her, and my God, it was one of the most inspiring few days of my life, and they’re going to stay with me forever,” Steve shares. “I tell you, it was like walking around with the Queen. People see her coming, and instantly they smile, and they have a quick interaction, and more often than not, Helen remembers their name, and asks them a question, and makes them feel so important.”
It was the same in the local community.
“I reckon we only walked 150 metres together at the Wangaratta Show a couple of weeks ago. It took us nearly an hour, because she stopped to talk to everyone.”
One Nation’s Ovens Valley candidate James Rouel, who first met Helen at this year’s Wangaratta Show, says the attack had deeply troubled him and his team.
He has since removed the magnets from his car and stepped up risk assessments for events and campaigning.
“We’re probably from three different perspectives, but at the end of the day, we’re all human, and it’s really nice that we can get along and be civil and polite to each other,” James says.
The community was buoyed by news over the weekend that Helen’s critical condition was downgraded to serious but stable at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne.
Charmane is already planning for the best, including a return for their regular catch-up at the Wangaratta Show in 2027.
“I’m counting on it. We haven’t missed our 10am visit in the whole time I’ve been secretary, so we’ll play it by ear. But I’m certainly booking it in, and I’m sure if, as her husband put it, her heart and her mind are willing, she will make it happen.”
Helen Haines’ family has asked that, instead of sending flowers, well-wishers make donations if they are able to Save the Children.
If this article has raised any issues for you, help is available. Call Lifeline on 13 11 14 for 24/7 crisis support and suicide prevention. You can also chat online at lifeline.org.au. More services are available here.
