Kooyong independent MP Monique Ryan spoke to ABC radio Melbourne this morning after a candidates’ forum she was at was invaded by three “right wing bullies” who immediately started yelling about immigration as they entered the room.

Ryan helped stop the moment from becoming a physical altercation by moving away a woman who confronted the men.

She told the station:

[The woman] was clearly expressing distress. She was kind of screaming, actually. And then she went over to him, and she sort of threw a punch at him. She was a little lady, pretty frail, and he was not a small man, and I was really concerned about that, and the potential for that to escalate, where he did give her a push or something like that,” Ryan said.

[I] firmly moved her away and asked another member of the audience to look after her. She actually looked a bit taken aback by her own action in doing that … I spoke to her afterwards, and she was a bit horrified by the whole thing.

Ryan said she asked another of the candidates to call the police while audience members and organisers of the Friends of the ABC event moved the men out of the room.

….Eventually they left,” Ryan said.

It was stupid, pointless posturing, basically by these right wing bullies … these people were just undertaking pointless disruption.”