The tragic events of the past week have shown Australians who we are – and it’s a long way from our image of ourselves | Julianne Schultz

Immediately after news of the alleged attack on Helen Haines was revealed, the prime minister and others were quick to say, this is not who we Australians are, this is not the way we behave.

The data from the Australian federal police, Asio and the experience of individual MPs suggested this may in fact be what a disappointingly significant number of us have become over the past decade.

Nonetheless it was a comforting and reassuring message, reinforced by the outpouring of goodwill and best wishes for the critically injured MP.

But these words had hardly entered the public domain before the backlash began online. The same thing should happen to more women; the perpetrator was a political activist, and on and on, filling the comments space in platform after platform.

Other female MPs, their faces stretched tight with grief and streaked with tears, told of the threats they had received, of letters pushed under their doors, of angry people, usually men, arriving in their offices to shout abuse and make threats, to watching over their shoulder as they walked back to their car park or office at night – and of course the endless stream of online invective with expletives, caps and exclamation marks.

Even the governor general, Sam Mostyn, only the second woman to hold that office, commented after receiving abusive comments following her call for kindness and respect. “Women across the country know that there are certain things that are reserved for women … that go to our gender and they are often vicious and just despicable.”

At this point one can’t presume to guess details of what may have been in the mind of the man who has been charged with the alleged attack that led to Haines’ grievous injuries. That will be for the court to determine.

But we can attempt to understand the climate in which this hideous attack occurred. It is a human and interpersonal climate that has been heating for years – and just like the real heating climate, not one with easy, cost-free ways of cooling.

This climate won’t be on trial, but it forms a backdrop that touches us all and needs to be addressed head-on.

In this broader context it is demonstrable that angry, unstable men particularly hate capable, intelligent and gracious women.

By contrast, good men adore them.

Personally, I hold the “leader of the free world” to account for fostering and enabling an environment in which the once unthinkable has almost become the new normal.

Once it wouldn’t have mattered all that much if the leader of a country in another hemisphere lacked character and said outrageous things. But in the global village it matters a great deal.

Positive, personal relations between people have been undermined with vicious words and actions, and trust in institutions corroded with lies and disinformation.

The thin end of this wedge was a dagger directed at women, the original “other” since Eve picked the apple in the Garden of Eden. That a person of such stature should wield it added weight.

This virus was unleashed at precisely the moment when after decades of struggle, gender equality was becoming a reality, here, and in many other countries.

Women and their allies, at least initially, successfully fought back with huge rallies and legal action. But others did all they could to put women back in home-shaped boxes, ditch witches with too much power and belittle and demean the rest. Over time the virus has mutated, increased its lethality and infected many. Even good men have found it hard to successfully push back and protect both their sons and their daughters.

The consequences are dire. From increasing rates of domestic violence and murder, to tolerance of intolerable treatment of the most vulnerable, and increasing communal and political violence online and in life.

Female political leaders are particular targets.

The vector carrying the virus that has done so much damage is a global form of “communication” that amplifies anger and outrage, removes national control over public discourse and corrodes humanity and decency. Click by click.

This is what the new normal looks like. It is a long way from our image of ourselves. It is a new normal manufactured by a system of “communication” that amplifies hate and anger, that profits from engagement and is unconcerned about consequences.

It has been brewing for a while.

While the transmission medium is dressed in the clothes of freedom of speech, it is hard to combat. But as the case settled between Meta and dozens of US states showed, this is not about freedom of expression, it is about hateful engagement by design. As Aaron Sorkin’s movie The Social Reckoning shows in painful detail, this has little to do with free expression and everything to do with maximising profits through poisonous engagement.

In Australia we still couch talk about what happens on these platforms in terms of freedom of speech (even though we lack it as a full constitutional right).

Saying we need to be nicer, do better, is important, but not enough. Serious regulation and penalties are essential.

In the 1940s American media leaders were warned that unless they lifted their game, stopped spreading lies, building up divisive and dishonourable politicians, spiking public opinion to pump profits, they might be subjected to draconian regulation – that even the first amendment might be at risk.

The threat was sufficient for them to respond by building professional practices that sought to raise, not lower, the level of civilisation.

It needs to happen again with their successors. Public and political communication is not just another business; transmission of the virus must be stopped.