We told you this morning that Victoria Police are investigating Upper House MP Catherine Cumming after she told a crowd of protesters over the weekend that the Prime Minister should turn into “red mist”.
As Tom Cowie has written, this term is used in the military to refer to a sniper’s death. Cumming, who was elected to the Legislative Council as an MP for Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party but has since become an independent, was a member of the Army Reserve for 10 years.
Crossbench MP Catherine Cumming at a rally last year. Credit: Jason South
She says she was not inciting violence, but was referring to the “red shirts” scandal. The red shirt saga involved workers using taxpayer-funded constituency officials for party political purposes.
Fellow crossbencher Fiona Patten, the leader of the Reason Party, attended the ABC’s RN breakfast earlier.
Presenter Patricia Karvelas wanted to know: Is this election campaign more extreme than past elections?
This was Patten’s response:
Certainly, in the electoral booth he has been quite aggressive. We’ve seen that volunteers – mainly party volunteers, not so much voters, it’s more people who work and volunteer for parties – get pretty hot under the collar. Being quite intimidating to other volunteers or even voters at times.
The comments of someone like Catherine Cumming are terrible. But, you know, there are twice as many right-wing conservative parties as there are progressive ones. And it shows… the kind of rhetoric in the polling booths. But, I mean, I think Catherine is in a game of her own.
Environment and Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio also had this to say over the weekend: