MELBOURNE, Australia: A man has been charged with threatening an Australian lawmaker's staff with nunchucks, police said on October 22, days after another legislator was critically injured when a man repeatedly hit her with a car.

Nunchucks are a martial arts weapon consisting of two sticks or rods connected by a rope or chain.

The incidents are heightening concerns about female politicians' safety and security in a country where lawmakers are highly accessible to the public.

Police say that a 56-year-old man entered Western Australian state government minister Hannah Beazley's electorate office in suburban Perth on October 21, brandishing nunchucks and making verbal threats. Beazley wasn't in the office at the time.

The man was detained and charged with being armed in a way that may cause fear and with threatening to perform an unlawful act. He spent the night in police custody and appeared in a Perth court later on October 22, police said.

Hannah Beazley said she was in the state parliament when the man entered her electorate office demanding to see her.

Beazley said two staff members had been "rattled" but remained safe behind a security screen.

"We don't know his motives at all," she told reporters.

Governor-General Sam Mostyn, who is only the second woman to ever serve as the British monarch's representative in Australia, said that she was abused on social media for speaking at a press conference on October 21 alongside Haines' husband Phil Haines.

"Like any woman who has stepped up into any position across any part of our society, there is a unique and pernicious form of attack that comes our way," Mostyn told ABC.

"Women across the country know that there are certain things that are reserved for women in that attack that go to our gender and they are often vicious and just despicable," she added.

Haines' alleged attacker, Brendan Nugent, appeared in court on October 21, charged with intentionally causing serious injury, dangerous driving causing serious injury, and causing harm to a federal official. He did not enter pleas and remains in custody.

Police are still searching for a motive.

Haines, a 65-year-old independent lawmaker, remained in critical condition on October 22 in a Melbourne hospital where surgeons amputated both her legs, a health department statement said.

Both the Haines and Beazley incidents have raised concerns about the safety of female politicians, who make up a growing share of lawmakers in Australian parliaments.

Just under 50 percent of federal lawmakers and a majority of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's Cabinet are women.

Australian lawmakers are some of the most accessible in the world and political violence has traditionally been rare. But fears grow that increasingly toxic public debate, driven by social media, creates additional risks for elected women.

Albanese said the fact that the threat to Beazley came so soon after the alleged attack on Haines was "just heartbreaking." Beazley is the daughter of Kim Beazley, Albanese's former federal colleague.

Male and female federal lawmakers agree that women are facing the worst of the online abuse.

"Of course, people are concerned. They're anxious," Albanese said. "There has been a normalization of behavior that can be very aggressive in a way that wasn't happening a couple of decades ago."

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