Damage has been done in Andy Meddick’s claim his daughter was attacked over his politics

Andy Meddick knew attaching his daughter’s attack to the pandemic Bill would smear its opponents. So why hasn’t he apologised for misleading us?

Four days later and Andy Meddick has still not apologised for making up stories about the reason his daughter was attacked in the street.

But it doesn’t really matter because the Animal Justice Party MP has already done the damage – to unfairly smear those who oppose the pandemic Bill as violent thugs.

As we all know, Meddick claimed on Friday that after his daughter, Kielan, was taken to hospital with a gash on her head.

He had “reason to believe that this could be linked to my role as an MP and the positions I have taken on the pandemic response”.

Just one problem. Police believe she was graffitiing over a poster on Smith St in Fitzroy – hardly a hotbed of right-wing thought – when a man started an argument with her about it.

She threw her spray can at the man, police said, and he threw it back – hitting her head.

There is no doubt that no one should have a spray can hurled at the back of his or her head.

Nor should that person throw it at someone else in the first place.

But for the victim’s father to frame the attack in a political light before all the facts were known is unfortunate at best and misrepresentation for political gain at worst.

The Meddicks hoodwinked everyone from the Prime Minister down.

“This is not just an attack on an innocent person but an attack on our very democracy,” Scott Morrison wrote.

Andy Meddick was one of three crossbench MPs who said they would vote in favour of the pandemic Bill. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Opposition leader Matthew Guy said to “target an MP’s family in this way is sickening”.

By the time Meddick went on ABC radio on Friday afternoon to quietly walk back his earlier statement – without an apology for jumping the gun – the damage was done.

There has been a concerted effort from proponents of the pandemic Bill to cast all opponents and all the hundreds of thousands of people who have protested as violent extremists.

They do this by highlighting a handful of dopes and fringe-dwellers, such as those whole rolled our nooses and gallows, and attaching their moronic actions to the rest of the crowd.

Politicians, including Meddick, have also received personal threats – and they must be condemned in the strongest terms.

But to attach that behaviour to the broader group of normal Victorians who are concerned about giving the premier dictatorial power is a devious way to silence their arguments.

A supposedly political attack on Meddick’s daughter was the transition from threats to physical violence – and thus great fuel to the fire for proponents of the Bill.

How many people would recognise Meddick in the street, let alone his daughter?

He should have been more worried that his daughter recovering than he was about the supposed motivation of the attack.

She shouldn’t have been assaulted and his father shouldn’t have been putting out media releases saying he was the reason behind it.

He, regrettably, made this a political issue.

But if this isn’t about politics, that apology should be forthcoming.

Originally published as Damage has been done in Andy Meddick’s claim his daughter was attacked over his politics