SYDNEY — A man was charged on Thursday with threatening an Australian lawmaker’s staff days after another female legislator was critically injured when a man repeatedly hit her with a car.John Lawrence Smart was accused of making verbal threats while armed with “improvised nunchucks” at Labor MP Hannah Beazley’s electorate office in the inner-Perth suburb of Victoria Park on Wednesday afternoon.Smart appeared on Thursday in the magistrates’ court in Perth, where his lawyer expressed concern for his mental health. He was not required to enter a plea.He was charged on Thursday with being armed in a way that may cause fear, making an unlawful threat and possessing cannabis. Police alleged Smart “made verbal threats while in possession of an improvised martial arts weapon (nunchucks)”.Nunchucks are a controlled weapon used in martial arts consisting of two or more batons joined by a cord, rope or chain. According to Western Australia state law, nunchucks can only be carried in public in the state for use in legitimate sports, training or martial arts instruction.During the court hearing, the highly agitated 56-year-old held his head in his hands and said he had been a musician for 20 years and he was holding claves.Claves are typically wooden sticks used as a percussion instrument.“People, they don’t understand what I’m going through,” Smart said from the dock. Prosecutors told the court that Smart was screaming when he entered Beazley’s electorate office, demanding to see her while holding two pieces of wood tied together above his head.Beazley wasn’t in the office at the time. Two staff members remained safe behind a security barrier in the office and no one was hurt.“It was confronting,” Beazley posted on social media.Magistrate Heidi Watson refused to release Smart on bail, saying he posed a potential risk to himself and the public. She ordered Smart to be medically assessed while in custody. He had previously been involuntarily admitted to hospital with schizophrenia.Smart did not enter pleas to charges of being armed, or pretending to be armed, in a way that may cause fear and with making an unlawful threat.There was no allegation that Smart’s alleged behavior was connected to the driver who hit federal lawmaker Helen Haines with his car in the east coast state of Victoria on Monday.Haines’ alleged attacker, Brendan Nugent, appeared in court on Wednesday on charges including intentionally causing serious injury. He did not enter pleas and remains in custody.Haines, a 65-year-old independent lawmaker, remained in critical condition on Thursday in a Melbourne hospital where surgeons have amputated both her legs, a health department statement said.Both the Haines and Beazley incidents have raised concerns about the safety of female politicians, who account for a growing proportion of lawmakers in Australian parliaments. Just under 50 percent of federal lawmakers and a majority of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Cabinet are women.Australian lawmakers are some of the most accessible in the world and political violence has traditionally been rare. But there are fears that increasingly toxic public debate driven by social media creates additional risks for elected women.Albanese said the fact that the threat to Beazley came so soon after the alleged attack on Haines was “just heartbreaking.” Beazley is the daughter of Albanese’s former federal colleague, Kim Beazley.“We can have debate and disagreement, but do it in a way without descending into the sort of violence that we have seen in too many parts of the world,” Albanese told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “It’s certainly not who we are as Australians.”Albanese attended an online security briefing this week for women lawmakers in his center-left Labour Party. Security agencies addressed misogynistic threats directed at them.Male and female federal lawmakers agree that women are facing the worst of the online abuse.“Of course people are concerned. They’re anxious,” Albanese said. “There has been a normalization of behavior that can be very aggressive in a way that wasn’t happening a couple of decades ago.”Governor-General Sam Mostyn, who is only the second woman to ever serve as the British monarch’s representative in Australia, said that she was abused on social media for speaking at a press conference on Wednesday alongside Haines’ husband Phil Haines.“Like any woman who has stepped up into any position across any part of our society, there is a unique and pernicious form of attack that comes our way,” Mostyn told ABC.“Women across the country know that there are certain things that are reserved for women in that attack that go to our gender and they are often vicious and just despicable,” she added.SYDNEY — A man was charged on Thursday with threatening an Australian lawmaker’s staff days after another female legislator was critically injured when a man repeatedly hit her with a car.John Lawrence Smart was accused of making verbal threats while armed with “improvised nunchucks” at Labor MP Hannah Beazley’s electorate office in the inner-Perth suburb of Victoria Park on Wednesday afternoon.Smart appeared on Thursday in the magistrates’ court in Perth, where his lawyer expressed concern for his mental health. He was not required to enter a plea.He was charged on Thursday with being armed in a way that may cause fear, making an unlawful threat and possessing cannabis. Police alleged Smart “made verbal threats while in possession of an improvised martial arts weapon (nunchucks)”.Nunchucks are a controlled weapon used in martial arts consisting of two or more batons joined by a cord, rope or chain. According to Western Australia state law, nunchucks can only be carried in public in the state for use in legitimate sports, training or martial arts instruction.During the court hearing, the highly agitated 56-year-old held his head in his hands and said he had been a musician for 20 years and he was holding claves.Claves are typically wooden sticks used as a percussion instrument.“People, they don’t understand what I’m going through,” Smart said from the dock. Prosecutors told the court that Smart was screaming when he entered Beazley’s electorate office, demanding to see her while holding two pieces of wood tied together above his head.Beazley wasn’t in the office at the time. Two staff members remained safe behind a security barrier in the office and no one was hurt.“It was confronting,” Beazley posted on social media.Magistrate Heidi Watson refused to release Smart on bail, saying he posed a potential risk to himself and the public. She ordered Smart to be medically assessed while in custody. He had previously been involuntarily admitted to hospital with schizophrenia.Smart did not enter pleas to charges of being armed, or pretending to be armed, in a way that may cause fear and with making an unlawful threat.There was no allegation that Smart’s alleged behavior was connected to the driver who hit federal lawmaker Helen Haines with his car in the east coast state of Victoria on Monday.Haines’ alleged attacker, Brendan Nugent, appeared in court on Wednesday on charges including intentionally causing serious injury. He did not enter pleas and remains in custody.Haines, a 65-year-old independent lawmaker, remained in critical condition on Thursday in a Melbourne hospital where surgeons have amputated both her legs, a health department statement said.Both the Haines and Beazley incidents have raised concerns about the safety of female politicians, who account for a growing proportion of lawmakers in Australian parliaments. Just under 50 percent of federal lawmakers and a majority of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Cabinet are women.Australian lawmakers are some of the most accessible in the world and political violence has traditionally been rare. But there are fears that increasingly toxic public debate driven by social media creates additional risks for elected women.Albanese said the fact that the threat to Beazley came so soon after the alleged attack on Haines was “just heartbreaking.” Beazley is the daughter of Albanese’s former federal colleague, Kim Beazley.“We can have debate and disagreement, but do it in a way without descending into the sort of violence that we have seen in too many parts of the world,” Albanese told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “It’s certainly not who we are as Australians.”Albanese attended an online security briefing this week for women lawmakers in his center-left Labour Party. Security agencies addressed misogynistic threats directed at them.Male and female federal lawmakers agree that women are facing the worst of the online abuse.“Of course people are concerned. They’re anxious,” Albanese said. “There has been a normalization of behavior that can be very aggressive in a way that wasn’t happening a couple of decades ago.”Governor-General Sam Mostyn, who is only the second woman to ever serve as the British monarch’s representative in Australia, said that she was abused on social media for speaking at a press conference on Wednesday alongside Haines’ husband Phil Haines.“Like any woman who has stepped up into any position across any part of our society, there is a unique and pernicious form of attack that comes our way,” Mostyn told ABC.“Women across the country know that there are certain things that are reserved for women in that attack that go to our gender and they are often vicious and just despicable,” she added.
Another Australian woman MP threatened days after car attack on Helen Haines
