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The desperate fight to save a 10-year-old terror victim · The Front

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: From The Australian, here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Thursday, September 17, 2026. The shocking neglect of Aboriginal
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  Speaker 1: children in remote Port Hedland has been revealed in The
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  Speaker 1: Australian in recent days, and now a growing chorus of
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  Speaker 1: voices is calling out a crisis in child protection. Two
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  Speaker 1: influential former ministers for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney and Ken
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  Speaker 1: Wyatt say communities need a direct line to government. That
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  Speaker 1: story's live now at theaustralian.com.au. The Bondi Beach massacre revealed
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  Speaker 1: flaws in Australia's paediatric trauma preparedness, with surgeons and nurses
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  Speaker 1: revealing in The Australian Today their deeply moving struggle to
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  Speaker 1: save the life of a 10-year-old girl. Now the NSW
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  Speaker 1: Government is creating a new paediatric trauma unit... We don't
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  Speaker 1: often hear what happens inside operating theatres in Australian hospitals.
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  Speaker 1: It's kind of the realm of television shows like ER,
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  Speaker 1: but today the Australians report in The most remarkable testimony
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  Speaker 1: of doctors and nurses who worked at Sydney Children's Hospital
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  Speaker 1: on the day of the Bondi Beach Massacre, December 14.
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  Speaker 2: No one likes losing a child. No one likes having
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  Speaker 2: someone to bleed to death on the operating table. So
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  Speaker 2: it's just like, you know, it's the worst of the
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  Speaker 2: worst of the worst.
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  Speaker 1: Surgeons Guy Henry and Matt Jobson and nurse Anne-Marie Sullivan.
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  Speaker 1: One thing that I do do is that I need
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  Speaker 1: to know the child's name.
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  Speaker 3: So....
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  Speaker 1: I made sure that everyone called her Matilda and I
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  Speaker 1: think I'm never going to forget her name. They frantically
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  Speaker 1: tried to save the life of 10-year-old Matilda Bridfern, the
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  Speaker 1: little girl who was shot at Bondi and subsequently died
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  Speaker 1: of her wounds. They reveal the desperate fight to save
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  Speaker 1: her life and the trauma that they've had to live
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  Speaker 1: with ever since.
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  Speaker 2: Like, I couldn't speak really, like, when I got home. Like,
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  Speaker 2: it's very difficult to say what's happened, to even get.
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  Speaker 3: The words out.
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  Speaker 1: I'm joined by Lachlan Leeming, who's the Australian's New South
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  Speaker 1: Wales political correspondent. Lachy, since December 14, the Bondi Beach
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  Speaker 1: massacre where 15 people were shot dead, this story has
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  Speaker 1: come to dominate your round and a lot of our
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  Speaker 1: work here at The Australian. Chris Minns says sometimes that
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  Speaker 1: everything changed on December 14.
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  Speaker 3: This is not something that's going to be over and
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  Speaker 3: done within 20 days, 30 days. We believe there needs
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  Speaker 3: to be fundamental change in New South Wales. to combat antisemitism,
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  Speaker 3: to combat extremism in our community, to call it out
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  Speaker 3: when we see it, and to make major changes to
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  Speaker 3: public safety in the state. And I can promise you
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  Speaker 3: that's a full book on its own.
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  Speaker 1: What's your perception of how politics changed here in this
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  Speaker 1: state and whether we are a different place now?
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  Speaker 4: Well, Claire, I've been covering state politics for a few
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  Speaker 4: years now, and I find it amazing when you think
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  Speaker 4: that social cohesion and antisemitism is probably the divining issue
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  Speaker 4: of this term of state government. When you think back
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  Speaker 4: to 2023, the election was fought on how expensive road
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  Speaker 4: tolls were and whether Sydney water would be privatised. In 2019,
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  Speaker 4: the election was fought on whether two football stadiums were
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  Speaker 4: going to be knocked down and rebuilt. The state election
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  Speaker 4: next year is likely to be fought on a battleground
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  Speaker 4: of social cohesion with anti-Semitism at the forefront of that.
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  Speaker 4: So these huge tectonic plates, which make some of the
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  Speaker 4: issues that previous state elections were fought over, in hindsight,
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  Speaker 4: look almost trivial. What that also does, I think, is
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  Speaker 4: provides this fertile ground for rhetoric to explode. And I
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  Speaker 4: think that's a ground that One Nation loves filling the
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  Speaker 4: space on too, right? When it's rhetoric instead of the
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  Speaker 4: actual actions a state government can take, we're almost going
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  Speaker 4: to see a federal election-style election of a state election
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  Speaker 4: next year. I deeply believe that with this social cohesion
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  Speaker 4: at the forefront of that.
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  Speaker 1: It was always here in New South Wales that Chris
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  Speaker 1: Minns was probably the premier of the entire country under
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  Speaker 1: the most pressure. The Jewish community felt that anti-Semitism was
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  Speaker 1: being expressed here in New South Wales, perhaps more than
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  Speaker 1: anywhere else, maybe more than anywhere else in the world.
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  Speaker 1: The October 9, 2023 march by pro-Palestine people where they
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  Speaker 1: burned Israeli flags and chanted things like, where's the Jews?
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  Speaker 1: at the Opera House, clearly shook the Premier at the time.
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  Speaker 1: And he's been trying to almost make it up to
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  Speaker 1: the Jewish community ever since.
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  Speaker 3: Any form of racism, any form of Islamophobia, hatred in
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  Speaker 3: our community, we will combat.
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  Speaker 1: Now the state government is responding to the Bondi Beach
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  Speaker 1: Massacre nearly a year on by announcing some changes in
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  Speaker 1: the way we're going to train for future mass casualty events.
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  Speaker 1: That's a bit depressing in itself, that there's an anticipation
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  Speaker 1: that more will come. What are they going to do?
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  Speaker 4: So the Minsk government now, Claire, is going to invest
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  Speaker 4: half a million dollars into a pediatric trauma unit. So
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  Speaker 4: essentially what they want to do is start running more
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  Speaker 4: simulations for mass casualty events, but they also want to
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  Speaker 4: bring together experts, particularly pediatric experts, who can share their experiences,
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  Speaker 4: particularly from events like the Bondi mass shooting, so that Basically,
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  Speaker 4: we have a level of preparedness for our next mass
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  Speaker 4: casualty event. Now, I just got off the phone to
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  Speaker 4: Ryan Park, the New South Wales Health Minister, and he
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  Speaker 4: said the next mass casualty event might not necessarily be
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  Speaker 4: a terrorist attack. It's whether it's a huge bus crash,
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  Speaker 4: which we've seen in this term of government as well,
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  Speaker 4: or some sort of an explosion, anything like that. But
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  Speaker 4: the crux of being prepared for that comes from the
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  Speaker 4: aftermath of that Bondi mass shooting when those paediatric surgeons
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  Speaker 4: appealed to them in the hours afterwards saying we need
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  Speaker 4: more experience in this field and the experience we've gathered
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  Speaker 4: today we need to make sure we protect and share
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  Speaker 4: it with other experts in the field so we're better
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  Speaker 4: prepared for next time.
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  Speaker 2: Did everyone do the best they could do on the day?
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely everyone you know everyone did as good as we
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  Speaker 2: could do on the day in the situation we were
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  Speaker 2: dealing with. It's very you can't justify a death in
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  Speaker 2: a child at all it's just wrong particularly something like
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  Speaker 2: this entirely preventable which should never have occurred in the
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  Speaker 2: first place.
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  Speaker 1: We're lucky in australia that pediatric surgeons aren't often dealing
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  Speaker 1: with gunshot wounds in children guy henry who's the person
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  Speaker 1: the government's tapped to kind of run this pediatric trauma
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  Speaker 1: center said in his interview with Elizabeth Coleman from The
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  Speaker 1: Australian that he trained in Washington, D.C., where you might
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  Speaker 1: see a gunshot wound once a week. Here, it's two
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  Speaker 1: in a quarter century of practice. That means, you know,
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  Speaker 1: without any criticism of these doctors and nurses, that they're
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  Speaker 1: not match fit for dealing with gunshot wounds. It feels
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  Speaker 1: a bit like the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, though, Lockie,
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  Speaker 1: doesn't it? I mean, what else is going on in
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  Speaker 1: terms of the New South Wales government's response to the
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  Speaker 1: factors that caused the Bondi Beach Massacre.
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  Speaker 4: This is obviously one step in the issue that has
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  Speaker 4: dominated policy for the last year at state level. We've
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  Speaker 4: seen the Minns government take some other steps which are
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  Speaker 4: fairly novel for our country. The standing up of a
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  Speaker 4: new rapid response unit of 250 highly trained police who
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  Speaker 4: can use long-arm firearms. The Premier's also shown that he's
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  Speaker 4: willing to push back against his own police force and
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  Speaker 4: support a trial of the Jewish Community Security Group being
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  Speaker 4: armed at public events, which the police aren't overly keen on.
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  Speaker 4: But Chris, again, has said this whole country and state
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  Speaker 4: has changed after December 14. So there's some of the
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  Speaker 4: big things that the state government and Chris Minns has
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  Speaker 4: implemented since what we saw last year.
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  Speaker 1: The government tried to crack down on protest too, and
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  Speaker 1: parts of that was struck down by the courts. Where
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  Speaker 1: have we ended up? It feels to me like I
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  Speaker 1: could march down Macquarie Street tomorrow chanting, globalise the intifada,
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  Speaker 1: and I wouldn't actually be breaking the law.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, we are in this scenario now where we've seen
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  Speaker 4: protest laws get struck down quite quickly. The Premier today
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  Speaker 4: was only just talking about his reluctance to try and
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  Speaker 4: outlaw phrases like globalise the intifada. And that's because he's
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  Speaker 4: looking at what's happening in Queensland, where similar slogans were banned.
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  Speaker 4: And at the moment, they're at the middle of a
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  Speaker 4: court challenge. So he's previously kept saying that he wants
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  Speaker 4: to hold off and see the outcome of that before.
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  Speaker 4: But we are in a patchwork of different laws when
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  Speaker 4: it comes to these sort of slogans in New South Wales.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up, more of my conversation with Lachie Leeming. Chris
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  Speaker 1: Minns clearly wanted to hold a Royal Commission after the
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  Speaker 1: Bondi Beach Massacre. He was clearly personally really shaken. There was,
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  Speaker 1: over that very hot period between December 14 and early January,
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  Speaker 1: a lot going on. Anthony Albanese initially refused or declined
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  Speaker 1: or delayed holding a Royal Commission, announced some sort of
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  Speaker 1: halfway point, which was an investigation into the security and
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  Speaker 1: intelligence measures that had been done. Then he buckled and
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  Speaker 1: announced a Royal Commission.
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  Speaker 5: This Royal Commission is the right format, the right duration
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  Speaker 5: and the right terms of reference to deliver the right
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  Speaker 5: outcome for our national unity and our national security.
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  Speaker 1: Chris Minns didn't. Why not?
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  Speaker 4: Chris's stance always was that his preferred option was for
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  Speaker 4: the federal or the Commonwealth government to call for a
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  Speaker 4: royal commission. He reasoned it had more powers than what
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  Speaker 4: he could summon at a state royal commission. But his
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  Speaker 4: stance always was, I'd rather the feds do it, but
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  Speaker 4: if they don't, I'm willing to do it. And he
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  Speaker 4: came out of the blocks quite early with that.
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  Speaker 3: I've got massive responsibilities in New South Wales and that's
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  Speaker 3: got to be my focus. I'm responsible for the New
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  Speaker 3: South Wales government and I'm going to act as I
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  Speaker 3: see best for our state.
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  Speaker 4: As I said, it was mostly because his reasoning was
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  Speaker 4: the feds had more power to call federal agencies and
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  Speaker 4: whatnot to appear before it. But the Federal Royal Commission
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  Speaker 4: that we ended up seeing was largely held out of
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  Speaker 4: here in New South Wales and it was quite in-depth
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  Speaker 4: in terms of its probing of the New South Wales
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  Speaker 4: police force.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, the Jewish community now is deeply concerned,
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  Speaker 1: very disappointed by the way the Royal Commission has unfolded.
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  Speaker 1: I don't think that's too much of a generalization and
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  Speaker 1: very apprehensive about what the Virginia Bell's report is going
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  Speaker 1: to say. They feel, I think, many people that I've
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  Speaker 1: spoken to feel that it's become a truth and reconciliation
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  Speaker 1: hearing where a list of Jewish people were able to
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  Speaker 1: share the awful experience of antisemitism. But we have not
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  Speaker 1: seen the kind of jihadi preachers or the student union
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  Speaker 1: activists or the people who run writers' festivals hauled in
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  Speaker 1: to be cross-examined about what they did to stoke antisemitism
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  Speaker 1: here in Australia. A New South Wales Royal Commission could
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  Speaker 1: have done that, and maybe Chris Minns would have empowered
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  Speaker 1: a commissioner to do that. I mean, I wonder if
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  Speaker 1: he's going to regret not having gone his own way.
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  Speaker 4: It's hard to say. I think the worst terror attack
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  Speaker 4: in Australia's history is necessitated such a strong response. And
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  Speaker 4: even listing what I had earlier, the rapid response team,
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  Speaker 4: now there's pediatric trauma unit, gun buybacks. The state government
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  Speaker 4: response has been so wide and varied. The fact that
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  Speaker 4: a federal Commonwealth Royal Commission could be held slightly separate
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  Speaker 4: from being the state's responsibility, it's probably something Chris Minns
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  Speaker 4: welcomed over the last year.
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  Speaker 1: There's still potentially a price to pay though, isn't there?
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  Speaker 1: One Nation is hammering the gun buyback issue. They're going
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  Speaker 1: to try to punish Labor MPs, particularly in country seats,
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  Speaker 1: over how much you're going to get for your gun
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  Speaker 1: when you hand it back, for example. Even though, as
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  Speaker 1: you said at the top, social cohesion is the big
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  Speaker 1: issue that Chris Minns is thinking about, voters are probably
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  Speaker 1: thinking more about cost of living and how much they're
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  Speaker 1: going to get for their gun, right?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly right.
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  Speaker 3: I think.
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  Speaker 4: The migration debate, it doesn't matter now whether it's federal
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  Speaker 4: or state. It's a federal responsibility, but we've seen how
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  Speaker 4: much state figures have had to speak on it as well.
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  Speaker 4: And I think that goes hand in hand with cost
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  Speaker 4: of living. People are feeling the crunch and they think
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  Speaker 4: maybe immigration is one way to address that. As I said,
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  Speaker 4: I think it will be a state election where instead
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: of talking about stadiums or even hospitals, we're going to
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: be talking about national issues more and more and more.
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  Speaker 1: Lachlan Leeming, thank you very much.
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  Speaker 4: Thanks for having me, Claire.
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  Speaker 1: Lachlan Leeming is The Australian's New South Wales political correspondent.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: You can read the latest from Lachlan and around Australia
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: right now at theaustralian.com.au.