Helen Haines

A Dairy Farm Near Colac

Haines grew up on a family dairy farm in south-west Victoria. Reuters, drawing on the biography on her website, places the farm near Colac and says she grew up there with four brothers. The Victorian branch of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) describes the same farm in its 2019 profile of her.

Politics was not part of the plan. In a November 2021 episode of the podcast The Leadership Lessons, reported by Women's Agenda, she put it plainly: "I had never seen myself as someone who would be putting my hand up to run for parliament, but I did so. I did so because, as a community person, I became highly engaged in seeking something better in our electorate."

Matron of the Chiltern Bush Nursing Hospital at 26

She trained as a nurse at St Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne, according to the ABC. What took her to the north-east was Phil Haines, an agricultural scientist at the Rutherglen Research Institute; the ABC wrote that she was "lured to the north-east by her sweetheart". The ANMF dates the move to 1986. She started work as a midwife at Wangaratta Base Hospital, and at 26 she became matron of the Chiltern Bush Nursing Hospital. The union's profile calls her the hospital's "youngest ever administrator and director of nursing".

The couple later settled on a farm on a billabong of the King River at Wangaratta. While working she completed a bachelor's degree by distance study at Deakin University, and she helped set up the Wangaratta Community Midwife Program, the ANMF reported.

Uppsala, Karolinska and Northeast Health

Her research took the family to Sweden. The ANMF lists a master's degree in public health from the University of New South Wales and a PhD in medical science, in reproductive health, from Uppsala University, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Reuters describes the Uppsala doctorate as a thesis on childbirth, and the ABC refers to it as a doctorate in medical science completed in Sweden.

Back in Victoria she worked as a research fellow at the University of Melbourne's Department of Rural Health, based in Wangaratta, and as Executive Director of Education and Research at Northeast Health Wangaratta. Reuters counts three decades in rural health as a nurse, midwife and academic before she ran for office. In the 2021 podcast interview she said that she and Ged Kearney were "the only two nurses in the parliament", and that as far as she knew she was its only midwife.

Voices for Indi and a Library Back Room

Indi is a rural electorate north of Melbourne that Reuters calls a traditional conservative stronghold. In 2012 a group of residents met in the back room of a library to talk about how to improve democracy in their area, Women's Agenda reported. They formed Voices for Indi. With the group behind her, Cathy McGowan won the seat as an independent in 2013, defeating the sitting Liberal MP, Sophie Mirabella.

McGowan retired at the 2019 election, and Voices for Indi selected Haines to run in her place.

The 2019 Count in Indi

The federal election was held on 18 May 2019. The Australian Electoral Commission tally room records 32,664 first preference votes for Haines, or 32.35 per cent. After preferences she finished on 51,886 votes, 51.39 per cent of the two-candidate-preferred count, and won the seat. The result had no precedent in the federal parliament: Reuters and the ABC both record her as the first independent to succeed another independent in the same seat.

The 66 to 64 Vote of November 2021

In her first term she put forward her own bill for a federal integrity commission. On 25 November 2021 she moved to interrupt the usual business of the House of Representatives and force a debate on that bill. Liberal MP Bridget Archer crossed the floor to second the motion.

The House voted 66 to 64 in favour, the ABC reported. The motion still failed, because it needed an absolute majority of 76 votes. Prime Minister Scott Morrison defended the government's position the same day: "I'm not going to have a kangaroo court taken into this parliament."

Larger Margins in 2022 and 2025

The AEC results show her hold on the seat growing after that first narrow win. At the 2022 election she received 41,319 first preference votes, 40.68 per cent, and 59,861 votes after preferences, 58.94 per cent of the two-candidate-preferred count. At the 2025 election, her third win, her first preference vote rose to 44,723, or 42.29 per cent, and she finished on 62,014 votes, 58.64 per cent after preferences.

Some of her work in those terms came straight out of events in the electorate. The ABC wrote that the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-2020 drove her push for reform of regional telecommunications.

Forty Years With Phil Haines

She and Phil Haines were due to mark their 40th wedding anniversary in November 2026, according to both the ABC and InDaily, and they had just welcomed another grandchild. The ABC reported that the couple have three children.

She is also a runner. Jaime Chubb, chief executive of the Centre Against Violence for the Ovens/Murray, told the ABC: "She's incredibly fit, she has run for our team in the Wangaratta marathon festival."

Sources

• Latest reports: MP loses leg after shocking attack - News | InDaily, Inside South Australia
• Helen Haines: Who is the Australian lawmaker targeted in vehicle attack? | International
• A runner, nanna, nurse and trailblazing MP, Helen Haines's life changed in an instant - ABC News
• ANMF member Helen Haines's bid for Parliament - On the Record
• Indi, VIC - AEC Tally Room
• Indi, VIC - AEC Tally Room
• Indi, VIC - AEC Tally Room
• Helen Haines never saw herself as a politician & that's why she's so valuable
• Scott Morrison defends blocking proposed federal corruption commission after MP crosses the floor - ABC News