The first-ever federal independent member for Indi, and predecessor of Helen Haines, says she felt "enormous relief" after hearing her friend is alive, while also pleading with the local community to disengage in "negative political argument".
When former independent MP Cathy McGowan found out what happened to her close friend Helen Haines , first came shock and disbelief.
She was holding a workshop on preferential voting ahead of Victoria's upcoming state election when the news reached her.
"I couldn’t believe it. What happened?" she recalled herself asking.
As the days followed, a complex layer of emotions set in, which she says the electorate of Indi is now forced to grapple with.
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The violence inflicted on Haines, struck by a four-wheel drive on Monday outside her Wangaratta electorate office in an alleged targeted attack, could happen to anyone, McGowan says.
"We can no longer think in rural Australia with our strong communities that we’re immune," she told SBS News.
"It was one of us in our community, by one of us, and saved by us as well. So, I think there's a sense of ownership but also shame that we've got to manage as well."
Haines has had both her legs amputated , her husband Phil confirmed on Wednesday, in an event that has stunned the nation.
Forty-three-year-old Brendan Nugent did not make a bail application when he fronted Wangaratta Magistrates' Court on Wednesday for the first time after being charged over the incident.
McGowan says hearing Phil’s update brought her "enormous relief".
"Her head's going to be okay. She'll come back. She'll bring her brilliant intellect, her humour, her love, and her laughter. We haven't lost it," she said.
McGowan won the seat of Indi in 2013 as the electorate’s first-ever independent MP, triggering the country’s first independent regional push before retiring in 2019. Haines has successfully continued the movement in the region.
At a council-run vigil in nearby Wodonga, where hundreds attended to show their support for Haines, McGowan addressed the crowd in a moving speech.
"We cannot change what has happened, but we can choose how we respond with the same compassion, the same kindness, and the same unity that Helen has always led with," she said.
"Could we commit to ourselves, [those] that are here, to not get involved in negative political argument?"
McGowan encouraged attendees to "be more like Helen" by listening “courageously, to respectful engagement, and being the change we want to see".
"It feels like there's been an attack on Helen … and in attacking her, there's a sense that there's an attack on our political system, on our democracy."
In northeast Victoria, that democracy, and the independent regional movement, is represented by the symbol of an orange cockatoo.
Some were plastered on Haines’ electorate office. At the vigil, people wore printed shirts and carried posters with the bird’s illustration. McGowan even wore cockatoo-shaped earrings.
The symbol emerged in 2016, Haines explained in an Instagram post eight years later, when it was endearingly observed that McGowan’s campaign volunteers "were like a flock of cockatoos".
"The association and symbolism has grown from there, representing a community flocking together to build a vibrant democracy," she wrote.
When vigil attendee Wolfgang Huber told SBS News about an old orange cardboard cockatoo sitting in his home for a decade, he held back tears.
Its crest is frayed, and its edges are tattered. But for the retired engineer from Wodonga, the bird now carries greater weight than ever.
Huber has worked for the Voices of Indi campaign since its inception in 2012. He kept his first cardboard cockatoo, a symbol that emerged in 2016, as a memento.
"When Helen Haines retires from federal politics, I want to frame it and gift it to her," an emotional Huber said.
“I consider her a friend, and she is just such an integral … and an honest part of Australian politics. What happened to her is just unbelievable," he said.
Susan Gordon-Brown has never met Helen Haines, and yet she feels like she knows her. She moved to Wodonga just a year-and-a-half ago, and voted for her in the 2025 federal election.
"She has this huge constituency, yet she seems to be everywhere," she told SBS News
She said the gravity of what happened this week only set in for her at the vigil, which she attended to support Haines.
"You go to work one day. This shouldn't happen to you."
