On Monday night, Georgie Purcell shared a statement on social media in support of Helen Haines , who earlier that day had been allegedly attacked by a constituent in her regional Victorian electorate.

Purcell, a Victorian upper-house MP whose region partly overlaps with Haines’s federal electorate, wrote that the alleged attack had sent chills down her spine. Being a woman in politics, she said, had changed the way she moved through the world – where she parked her car, which route she took home, even whether she held public events at all.

It didn’t take long to receive validation of why her precautions were necessary: a constituent commented on her Haines statement, saying he wished it had happened to Purcell. Another, a little while later, said: “You should be scared.”

Purcell reported them both.…