Parliament grieves as cardboard cockatoo serves as Helen Haines tribute

Far from the gum trees of north-east Victoria where cockatoos gather in noisy flocks, an orange cardboard bird perched in the parliament on Monday, saving a seat for Helen Haines.

"How lonely it looks," Liberal MP Andrew Hastie said.

But cockatoos are not normally lonely birds, and Ms Haines has built her life in much the same way.

The Independent Member for Indi could be loud for those she cared about. She made sure her people were impossible to ignore, and was surrounded by her community, building her political career from a grassroots campaign run by locals.

And unlike the rest of parliament, loud and raucous, Ms Haines was calm.

A week ago, she was standing by the boot of her car outside her Wangaratta office when a man hit her with his own car in what police say was a targeted attack.

The injuries were so severe both of her legs were later amputated.

"This should not just shock us," Wentworth MP Allegra Spender said.

"It should change us."

As the parliament suspended normal business to make time for messages of support for Ms Haines and her family, it was hard to escape the feeling that something had shifted.

One after another, for hours, MPs stood up to speak in the House about Ms Haines's uncommon kindness, wisdom and respect for civility as a politician.

"These are the type of politicians we wish we had more of," friend and crossbench colleague Kate Chaney said.

Like a "trick the heart plays on the mind", Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described finding himself looking across to where Ms Haines would normally sit, expecting to see her there.

"It is hard to think of anyone in this place with a more irrepressible twinkle in the eye," he said.

But the tributes were also threaded with another message: that the tenor of Australian politics must change, and that the country needed to find a better way to argue.

"And this is a moment for all of us to rise to the challenge," Speaker of the House Milton Dick said.

What Would Helen Do?

Members of the crossbench cried as they listened to messages of support for the woman they regard as the "matriarch" of Australia's independent movement.

Ms Haines was among the first wave of community-backed independents to reshape Australian politics, winning Indi after the retirement of fellow independent Cathy McGowan.

Community Strong MP Zali Steggall spoke of the role Ms Haines had played in helping shape the modern crossbench, guiding newly elected independents through the workings of parliament and teaching them how to advocate for their communities without the backing of a major party.

"There will be much discussion ahead about the need for better health and mental health services in the regions, our increasingly polarised political environment, harmful online debate and the need for greater civility in disagreement in parliament, in our media, online and in our communities," she said.

"So, Helen, I look forward to seeing you back here and getting on with the job. Let light win over darkness."

Independent MP Allegra Spender shared the first words Ms Haines spoke after the attack, as relayed by her husband, Phil Haines, who had met with parliamentarians earlier on Monday.

"Your first concerns were for your staff and gratitude to the first responders, nurses and bystanders," she said.

"And that exactly speaks to the character of who you are."

But for all her decency, Ms Spender said, Ms Haines was not a "benign force wandering through the parliament".

"People have spoken about your empathy and grace, and they deserve recognition," she said.

"What I will say is that you are also a force for change."

After winning Indi, voters have rewarded Ms Haines with two further terms, entrusting her with an electorate of mountains, rivers and fertile farmland, which was also acutely exposed to the effects of a warming climate.

After years of advocacy by Ms Haines, the federal government adopted temporary disaster roaming, an emergency system that allows mobile phones to switch to another carrier's network when their own service fails during a major disaster.

But few issues, her friends and colleagues said, animated her more than integrity in government.

Independent MP Andrew Gee was emotional speaking about the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), which she is credited for establishing.

Several politicians chose to commit to a Civility Pledge, inspired by the family of British MP Jo Cox, who was murdered in 2016. Ms Haines was the first MP to sign the pledge earlier this year.

MP Kate Chaney spoke about t-shirts printed for a Christmas party in her first year in parliament with the slogan: What Would Helen Do?

"I ask myself that question all the time," she said.

"Helen, please come back to us. We need you here more than ever".

The rage is getting worse, but we can get better

Mr Albanese said Australia had a proud tradition of disagreement but warned against confusing the vigour of democracy with "this rising tide of rage".

"We cannot allow disagreement to become a full stop. We keep talking. We keep working towards something better," he said.

There was a shared disbelief in the chamber that someone like Helen Haines, among parliament's most respected and unassuming figures, had become a target.

She had been "so, so far down" his list of potential security concerns, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said.

Mr Burke said Phil Haines had earlier urged the parliament to think not only about the words they choose, but about who might hear them.

"It goes to not simply would I be capable of doing something horrific, but would my words, if heard by someone on the edge, potentially have an impact that I wouldn't want them to have,"Mr Burke said.

A number of people also called for an honest conversation about mental health, including Liberal MP Dan Tehan.

Ms Haines is a former nurse and maternal health expert, and has long campaigned for additional support for regional services.

"We have to look at mental health services in and around regional and rural Victoria and across this nation," Mr Tehan said.

"We have to see whether we can do better."

As one man hurt Haines, others ran to help

Many MPs said they had spent the week hearing from Australians worried about a country growing more angry and more divided.

But in the same breath, they pointed to people like Ricky Jefferies, the local barber who ran towards danger when Haines needed help.

"One man drove at Helen, but others ran to her instinctively and courageously, and they saved her life," Independent MP Monique Ryan said.

"Our basic decency and our selflessness are there still, and we have to use those muscles, not the others."

Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie said Mr Jefferies knew most of the first responders because he cut their hair, "not because of social media networks".

"And there's something in that," he said.

"We thrive as a nation when we are in a community with our neighbours, when we are known by them and they are known by us."

He encouraged all politicians to behave better in parliament and online.

"We can all go better and we should strive to do better," he said.

"Lets play the ball, not the person and leave nasty personal politics of MAGA in the US."

Labor MP Ged Kearney broke down as she spoke about Ms Haines but said she had tried to honour her example by making herself as "visible as possible" over the weekend.

"I walked the streets amongst kids in Halloween costumes. I went to listen to music. I had lunch in a cafe, and visited a scouts party," she said.

"We all have fears and we do things differently now to assess risks … but at the end of the day, if I can't walk down High Street or Edward Street or Station Street and be with the people I represent, then well, what is this for?"

Parliament looks to the day it is made whole again

At a vigil held in Wangaratta to honour Ms Haines in the days after her attack, cockatoos wheeled overhead.

"They make a lot of noise, but they're very supportive of each other as a flock," former politician and friend Cathy McGowan told the ABC.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said when Ms Haines resumed her seat, it would be a "resounding moment for democracy".

"In those horrific moments last Monday, and in the critical hours and days afterwards, one man's cruelty stood in stark contrast to the courage and decency of so many Australians," he said.

In her maiden speech, Ms Haines had reflected on the erosion of trust affecting democracies around the world.

Indi, she argued, offered a different lesson.

"Division and polarisation are not the inevitable outcome," she said then.