Police recorded 1,067 reports of threats and harassment against politicians in the latest financial year, up 12% year-on-year and double the level five years earlier. (EPA Images pic)SYDNEY: Australian lawmakers and enforcers have to sought to lower the temperature of political debate and warned about growing threats to public figures since 2021, when anti-lockdown protesters put an effigy of a state leader on a makeshift gallows in Melbourne.

Those fears came to a head on Monday when a man rammed a car into Helen Haines, an independent member of the lower-house, inflicting major injuries including the loss of a leg, media and officials said, while doctors work to save the other.

Police have yet to state a motive for the attack outside Haines' regional electorate office in Wangaratta, some 240km (150 miles) away from Melbourne.