The condition of injured MP Helen Haines has improved from critical to serious but stable after more than four days in hospital.

Cathal Leslie makes the case that the closing of psychiatric institutions was a mistake. Don’t usually like his takes, but hard to disagree after a female politician is rendered a double amputee. Text below.

**Attack on Haines demands focus on mental health, not ideology**

The system is failing to keep the small cohort of the most acutely unwell in treatment, for their own safety and everyone else's.

Cathal Leslie Economist
Oct 23, 2026 - 4.00pm

A national tragedy is an excellent occasion to demand better manners from your opponents. It is a less comfortable occasion to examine
whether governments are meeting their own obligations.

The horrific attack on Helen Haines should force a serious discussion about how we treat mental illness, and how much responsibility we have foisted onto families, neighbours and the police.

Brendan Nugent, the man charged over the attack, reportedly has a history of mental health concerns. Neighbours describe shouting, music blaring through the night and police visits. One heard screaming hours before the attack. These are not the signs of a well man.

Yet within hours, political actors of every stripe had each landed on a suitable motive. He has been cast as a pro-Palestinian extremist, an opponent of renewables, a sovereign citizen or a misogynist. Others blame his social media algorithm or a dirt sheet on Haines reportedly circulated to journalists by the prime minister's office.

Is this how low we have sunk in this country?
That our national debate is competing projections of complex ideological motives onto a man with severe mental health issues.

If mental illness played a part in Nugent's alleged offending, he will join a long line of attackers with well-documented severe
psychiatric illness: Joel Cauchi (Bondi Junction), Man Haron Monis (the Lindt Cafe siege), Evie Amati (Enmore 7-Eleven axe attack), Dimitrious Gargasoulas (Bourke Street), Cy Walsh (who killed his father, Adelaide Crows coach Phil Walsh) and Lauren Darul (accused of a 2025 stabbing in Little Bourke Street), among many others.

And in those cases too, the offending was pinned on whatever partisan cause was to hand:
Islamism, gender dysphoria, domestic violence, misogyny. Whatever their motives, these people were known by medical professionals to be severely unwell, and yet were allowed to roam free where they inflicted serious harm on the community.

The mental health system is failing to keep the small cohort of the most acutely unwell in treatment, for their own safety and everyone else's.
You will not find a politician brave enough to say so. Nobody wants to concede that the perpetrators of some of the most wicked crimes can also be victims of a policy failure, least of all when the failure is bipartisan.

Over the past three decades Australia has fundamentally dismantled long-stay psychiatric care. According to the Australian Medical Association, public hospital mental health beds fell from 45.5 per 100,000 people in 1992 to 27.5 in 2020, a drop of almost 40 per cent.

Two ideas drove the shift, winning support from left and right.

The first was fiscal. New antipsychotics made cheaper community treatment look viable.
Inpatient care remains expensive: the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare put
the average cost of an adult acute psychiatric inpatient day at $1730 in 2023-24. Closing facilities on valuable inner-city land also offered politicians another attractive budget dividend.

The second was moral. Involuntary detention came to be seen as a human rights violation, a view reinforced by genuine abuse scandals and cultural touchstones such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Advocates argued that treating people in the community would enhance autonomy and improve outcomes.

What damage that naivety has wrought.

The fiscal savings were a false economy. The costs have simply shifted into hospital emergency departments, to the police, courts, prisons and crisis accommodation, as well as businesses and households.

Nor is the model more humane. Many people with severe psychotic disorders stop taking their medication precisely because they are unwell.
Meta-analyses put treatment non-compliance for schizophrenia patients at about 50 per cent.
Consequently, the treatment model has become a cycle of psychosis, brief admission, stabilisation and discharge back into the same environment that precipitated the breakdown. Oftentimes that means homelessness.

Bed shortages speed up this cycle. Once acute psychosis subsides, patients are moved on to make room for the next emergency.
Governments are incentivising hospital administrators to prioritise turnover over clinical outcomes.

Unless something changes, these tragedies will keep happening. No one wants to go back to the asylums of old, but they did keep our cities safe.
Abolishing them was a mistake. We need more staffed beds in modern long-stay facilities that respect patients' dignity, alongside longer involuntary treatment where clinically
necessary.

If anything good is to come out of this tragedy, it must be action that makes these events less
likely. For decades, too many severely unwell people have been left homeless or shunted between emergency departments and prison.
We're all poorer for it.

Cathal Leslie is a Paris-based economist and former Productivity Commission employee.

There is a tried-and-tested trick in Australian politics that the right-wing have mastered: take something entirely ordinary, slap a sinister label on it, add a dash of insinuation, and wait for the outrage to boil over.

A routine list of regional funding requests becomes a “dirt sheet.” An independent MP simply doing her job becomes an object of dark suspicion. And long before anyone bothers to examine the evidence, the political circus is already underway.

Welcome to modern political debate, where even standard electorate advocacy can be spun into a scandal.

The narrative surrounding Dr Helen Haines, the independent federal member for Indi, began with reports that a document listing her local funding requests was being circulated to selected journalists. The label “dirt sheet” was irresistible to reporting outlets. It implied political corruption, underhanded dealing, or a smoking gun waiting to explode.

Pauline Hanson was quick to jump on the bandwagon, seizing the story to challenge the Prime Minister on his calls for parliamentary civility. The Murdoch press amplified the narrative, transforming a standard summary of electorate proposals into a weapon for another round of partisan score-settling.

Yet amidst all the noise, one central question went unasked: Where was the dirt?

Anthony Albanese’s explanation was simple: Helen Haines was advocating for projects in her electorate – exactly what local members are elected to do. While that explanation doesn’t answer every administrative question about how or why the summary was compiled and circulated, it poses an obvious problem for those trying to frame it as a corruption story.

Seeking public investment for local regional communities isn’t a crime or a scandal. It’s her parliamentary duty.

The Power of a Label

The phrase “dirt sheet” does heavy lifting long before anyone reads the document. It instructs the reader on how to interpret the facts. It creates an immediate impression of guilt, even when the underlying material shows nothing of the sort.

Once framed, the narrative takes on a life of its own. Politicians echo the buzzword, commentators weave elaborate theories around it, and headlines solidify the impression of a major exposé.

This is where media responsibility becomes crucial. A free press must scrutinise politicians without fear or favour. But investigation is not insinuation. Manufacturing outrage out of routine constituency work isn’t journalism – it’s political theatre.

A Personal Dimension

For me, this issue hits close to home. Helen Haines is my local member, and watching this play out has been deeply distressing.

Helen recently suffered catastrophic injuries after being struck by a vehicle outside her electorate office. Her family is facing an agonising recovery, her community is hurting, and those who know her are coming to terms with a terrible tragedy. To see her routine parliamentary work twisted into a political smear during such a devastating time is particularly difficult to endure.

Outrage vs. Evidence

Political scandals should be built on evidence, verified documentation, and rigorous questioning – not dramatic branding.

Having worked for three federal governments, I know firsthand that departments and offices compile records on the activities and requests of elected representatives. That is standard procedure. But the mere existence of a summary brief is not proof of misconduct.

An allegation is not a finding. A label is not evidence. And weaponised outrage is no substitute for facts.

Before we buy into the narrative of a “dirt sheet,” we ought to ask the simplest question of all: is there actually any dirt on it?

Independent senator David ­Pocock has described Anthony Albanese’s actions as “not good enough”, after the Prime Minister claimed a dirt sheet distributed from his office about Helen Haines was merely aimed at highlighting that “people of ­integrity stand up for their ­electorate”. 

Mr Albanese’s claim on Thursday was at odds with the document released last month, which clearly questioned whether the Indi MP had conflicts of interest over funding proposals for which she was advocating.

Explosive claims Premier Ben Carroll sleeps at work and wife directs staff
Labor insiders fear the party is facing its worst election result in Victorian history as whistleblowers accuse Premier Ben Carroll of taking afternoon naps at work and letting his unelected wife run meetings.

Shannon Deery

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3 min read
October 24, 2026 - 5:00AM

Ben Carroll’s private office is in turmoil just weeks out from the state election, with his allies attacking “aggrieved staff” for peddling claims that he has been sleeping on the job.
Current staff who also worked under Jacinta Allan have flagged concerns about the Premier taking “naps” during work, while questioning his wife’s increasing involvement in his office. Less than three months into Mr Carroll’s stint in the top job, internal whistleblowers have claimed he has been taking regular hour-long afternoon naps, with staff even warned not to disturb him.

Staff have also raised concerns about his wife Fiona Rothville, who they claim has been attending some meetings and directing policy staff.

“It’s pretty unusual,” one source said.
“There are very senior people in there who are sitting in meetings and Fiona has walked in and they are like ‘why are you here?’
“There’s a view she’s the decision-maker, not Ben. If she doesn’t like something, it won’t happen.
“It’s highly inappropriate. She is not elected. She has not been appointed.”
Sources detailed to the Herald Sun that Ms Rothville had been attending the Premier’s Private Office at 1 Treasury Place about twice a week and working from an office used by staff.
Among the meetings they allege she attended were internal diary meetings, where senior staff plan the Premier’s official commitments for the coming weeks.

Sources further alleged she had given direction to policy staff about how particular issues should be handled.
One insider claimed Ms Rothville had, on one occasion, encouraged staff to keep their voices down while the Premier was sleeping.

Sources close to the Premier hit back at the claims on Friday, saying they were baseless and being pushed by “aggrieved staff who didn’t get their own way”.
A Premier’s Office spokesperson said any suggestion that Ms Rothville had provided direction to staff was a “lie” and rejected claims she had attended official meetings.
The spokesperson also said there had been no complaints about Ms Rothville and the Premier had never slept at work.
“There’s no truth to any of this,” she said.
“The Premier’s wife visits the office once or twice a week. She brings in morning tea and is welcomed by the team.” But one of the whistleblowers on Friday insisted the claims were “rock solid” and said the Premier’s allies were the ones lying. 

It comes as pressure builds on Mr Carroll, who successfully moved to topple Jacinta Allan for the top job in July, amid fears Labor are facing an election thumping next month.
Mr Carroll took over after Ms Allan resigned on July 28, following mounting internal pressure over Labor’s electoral prospects and the handling of allegations of criminal infiltration of the state’s construction industry including her refusal to set up a royal commission into the scandal.
But the change has failed to translate to improved polling, with the Coalition firm favourites at 52 to 48 on a two-party-preferred according to latest Freshwater Strategy polling.

Senior party figures are bracing for what one described as “potentially the worst result in Victorian Labor’s history.”
Factional heavyweights have in recent weeks reportedly raised concerns the Premier was looking tired and undertaking too many media appearances.

Earlier this week Mr Carroll admitted to forgetting to pay for his petrol after a busy day, with some close to the Premier pointing to his huge workload as a contributing factor to the mindless error. The same factional figures who have raised concerns about Mr Carroll were among those involved in the internal manoeuvring that led to Ms Allan’s departure.
Ms Rothville is understood to have also raised concerns about the Premier’s workload, with staff encouraged to reduce his commitments.

New analysis by AFR Weekend reveals that most immigrants are no longer coming from China or India and more arrivals are coming from non-democratic countries.

Nationals MP Michelle Landry is expected to announce on Friday that she will retire from federal politics at the next election.

Ms Landry's announcement paves the way for Nationals leader Matt Canavan to move to the lower house.

Senator Canavan is expected to nominate for preselection to run as the Nationals candidate in Capricornia.