You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Today is a different show than usual, because today is a different day. Last night, as the light was fading at Bondi Beach, Australia suffered its worst ever terrorist attack on our soil when two gunmen opened fire on a family celebration of the Jewish religious festival of lights Hannekah. Today, we're all, whether we're connected to the place in the community or whether we're watching and reading from far away, reeling with the loss of As we record this, fifteen innocent people, including.
A ten year old child.
More than forty people are still in hospital, including two police officers and more children. As we're recording and throughout the day, the identities of those affected are coming to light and it's just unthinkably sad and very frightening. So today on Mamma Mia out Loud, we're here to talk. And joining me for this talk are Jesse Stevens, Amelia Lester and Mia Friedman. Mia, thank you for coming back to the mic today. This attack did happen in your
community and close to home. Let's start with why last night, what kind of gathering that was at the beach for Hannakah?
Yeah, first of all, thanks to all the out louders who've reached out the kindness, and I know we're going to talk about that more shortly, but the kindness that has been shown by so many people has been quite overwhelming. Hannakhah is just a really simple, happy festival. It's called
the Festival of Light. Ironically, it is a festival that is about celebrating the triumph of light over darkness, and it sort of celebrates this old story of a small band of Jewish people who won against a much bigger empire. And there was a tiny bit of oil that should have lasted one day, but somehow, by a miracle, it kept a sacred flame burning fight. So over the eight days of Hunterkah, we like candles and we tell the story and we eat lots of treats. So it's sort
of like a bit of a Christmas equivalent. You know, some people give presents. It's very family and children based. It's a very sort of happy festival.
And this festival in Bondai last night was you know, face painting, There was a petting zoo, there was food stands all all set up, and a gathering of.
So many Jewish people.
You know, some of whom we know are out louders, and when I've been to synagogue with you Maya, we are often approached by out louders from that community. And I think that just first up in terms of who we're thinking about today, that community, who who were there, who had this moment of peace and safety interrupted and
you know, horrifically traumatically how that unfolded. We're just thinking of them, and we're thinking of everyone who had to send messages and check on their family who were there and who have experienced the unthinkable overnight.
Yeah, it feels a lot of people have said, you know, obviously for those who don't know I'm Jewish, there are some people that might not know that I'm some out louders or people who are new to the show who might not realize that I'm Jewish, But I am Jewish. And a lot of people have said, you know, how do you feel? And the sentiment there's a million things, and I can't obviously speak for my whole community. I
can only speak for myself. But what people keep saying is we are shocked, but we are not surprised because to be Jewish living in any country, you grow up with a really acute awareness that there are a lot of people who hate Jews and that your safety is always precarious, particularly during gatherings.
And that's why the presence of security is someone who's been welcomed into the Eastern Suburbs Jewish community as an outsider, to go to a place of worship and see people standing out the front, with standing out the front as security is not something you see when you walk.
Into a Catholic church, no, And it's interesting because we take that sofa granted, like you know, there's raizor wire around our schools and our preschools and our daycare centers, and there is a whole volunteer security army of Jewish people that work to try and keep the community safe. And most Jewish events are kept very very secret for
this exact reason always. And what's interesting, this particular Hanuka gathering was by the Hubbard community, which is you know, like any religion, there's a there's a spectrum of degrees of observance observance, yeah, exactly, And the Hubbard community is very open and they're very you know, one of the rabbis, the rabbi that was killed, the organizer of the event who goes by the handle on Instagram at Bondai Rabbi.
He was very welcoming. You know, he just had his fifth child six weeks ago and he was posting on social media. He sort of uses social media to try and and break down some of the anti Semitism and to promote, you know, the religion as a as a really positive thing.
I mean, the New South Wales Police commissioner mentioned I noticed that the Jewish community does have their own security force, which I did not know about.
Yeah, we do.
It's a lot of I have a lot of friends and relatives of friends.
Of people of all ages.
But it takes you know, our synagogues and our any Jewish gathering is we need a huge amount of protection and you grow up knowing it, and you know, I always say that they're purely volunteers, but they're very you know, they're well trained, and my heart's also with them today because their whole purpose is to try and keep our community safe.
If you're not familiar with Bondai Beach, it sounds kind of like a silly thing to say, because it's no doubt one of the most famous places in Australia. But there are be lots of people listening to this who've never been there. Right, So Bondi is in these and suburbs of Sydney. It is intensely international. Anyone who would have been watching the news coverage last night would have been struck by the all the different accents from all over the world of the people who were caught up
in this horrific event yesterday. So it attracts people from all over Sydney and all over the country and all over the world to see this beautiful beach and ye yesterday in Sydney was a stunning summer day and at about six thirty seven o'clock on an eastern suburb city beach when the weather is like this, there are thousands of people. So there was this very particular gathering.
There's just on one part in the park behind the beach.
Yes in a very specific place on the beach. But then all around them there were backpackers, there were surfers, there are families with their kids, there are people walking their docks, there are people exercising. This place is very busy, it's very populous, and I think one of the things that is so striking about this is that sort of peace and different degrees of celebration being so horrifically disrupted.
But for the.
Local community there, the eastern suburbs of Sydney has I think the second largest concentration of Jewish people in the country.
So it's interesting.
The Bondai community is incredibly tight and I've spent time living in Bondai as well, and you know a huge number of non Jewish people of course that live in Bondai, but the Jewish community is also very close knit. And you write the concentric circles of those two things overlap very much. And you know the geography is such because you might have seen bits in online or in the news. It's like there's Campbell Parade, which is the main road that runs from one end of the beach to the other.
Then in front of that is like there's a bit of a car park, and there was that bridge where the terraces were, and then there's a park that goes from one end.
To the other.
Then there's the promenade, and then there's the beach. And so the where this happened was set up almost like a little fate, as you said, Jess, with like a petting zoo and little little market stalls and things.
And in order to if you are walking to the children's park, you would go over that bridge like you would.
Yeah, we've all been across that absolutely many times.
And you know at that time there are still people swimming like it's a surface in the water.
A very popular time and I can't think of many places in the world, in fact, where you would feel safer than sitting on the grass there in Bondai with that incredible, that calmness, that sereneness like and I think as someone who didn't grow up in the Eastern Suburbs but has moved there, you can't look at the Eastern Suburbs without without the Jewish presence, Like I think it's one third of the Jewish population in Australia lives in
the Eastern Suburbs. And you see on a Friday night you see the men in their killers or traditional Jewish dress and that is part of living in the Eastern Suburbs.
Quite a few synagogues around there, Yeah, yeah, because the very observant Jews. You need to walk to synagogue. But it's also the Jewish community, to be clear, is really small, Like there's one hundred thousand Jewish people in Australia.
That's tin you tiny tiny.
That must mean though that an event like this, I mean, for you, last night, everybody knows somebody, I assume. Yeah, And so everybody's messaging each other, everybody's checking in, everybody's afraid.
Yeah, it's true.
And you know, I was having dinner last night. I didn't I wasn't looking at my phone, and suddenly someone looked at their phone and then we all checked. And the sirens, we just heard sirens. We live a couple of suburbs away from Bondai and the other thing to explain, and then the choppers and everything. But the other thing for people to understand is that Bondo is a real melting pot. People sometimes hear eastern suburbs and think that it's all she shei and fancy and influences. It's like,
it's not that Amelia. You've you don't live near there, but you've what's your well.
I think this is why terrorism is so uniquely upsetting, because just as Hanakut is a sacred, holy special time for the Jewish community, the beach is Australians a sacred place too. And this is what terrorism aims to do. It aims to make us all feel unsafe by targeting one community practicing their religion at a place that is sacred to all Australians that it doesn't get more fundamental as a breach of what Australia is and what we stand for.
And the symbolism of Bondao Beach, you could not probably find a more iconic symbol of what it is to be Australia.
It's the one place in Australia that everyone in the world knows. They don't know the Harbor Bridge, some of them know the Opera House, some of them know Ularu. Everyone's heard of Bondo Beach and what they think of they think of Bondo Beach is the quintessential Australian lifestyle that is practiced there, which includes people of all religions and all social classes coming together to have an ice cream at the end of what was a quintessential early summer day.
And the acknowledgment last night as it was all coming in and we were, you know, checking on friends and I'm looking at it.
You have family that live at Bondai and you're down in that part.
Yeah, yeah, you're there.
Offer very with your family, familiar and you're thinking about the children and the people, they're just practicing their faith. And I just kept thinking about you flee Europe because of the Holocaust and the mass migration to the Eastern suburbs, a lot of it happened after World War Two, post Holocaust to flee ethnic persecution, and you end up on the shores of Bondai Beach and you are attacked there.
The unthinkable, unfathomable cruelty of that, and then as we have learned more about the victims, including one victim who was himself a Holocaust survivor, as was his wife. To be killed on Bondi Beach is just I think unsettles our sense of who we are as Australians and what we offer people who come here wanting us say for life.
The truth is that we've been feeling unsettled in the community for a while now. There's been growing anti Semitism and what I said about we're so shocked, but we're not surprised.
This is our worst fears realized.
And as I said, when there's such a small community, pretty much every Jewish person is the descendant of either Holocaust victims or Holocaust survivors. Usually Holocaust victims. We all have family members who were lost in the Holocaust. I have it on both sides, or my kids have it on both sides of their family, and so that's always
present in our mind. But you're right, there's a certain sense of suspension of fear that you have to have to go about your daily life, and you are more alert when you go to like a synagogue or you know, I've been to Jewish events, But as you say, there's something about Bonday Beach because this wasn't like a religious they weren't practicing their religion. It was just like a gathering, like a community gathering that anyone was welcome to celebrated exactly like a Christmas.
Concert like Carols by the Beach or something like that.
We're going to be back in a moment.
We wanted to talk a little bit about how this is a lot more local story. It's it's the top story on news sites all around the world. I think it's the top news story in the world today.
Why do you think that is?
I think that that Jewish communities all over the world are deeply touch.
Yeah.
Yeah, But I also think that it is the fact that a terrorist attack of this magnitude in Australia does not happen. A usual story Australia is seen and we you know, we talked about this in different ways, but as a as a safe place.
And I think.
That this, the fact that this has happened in somewhere so iconically international, is going to be shocking to everybody.
And to stand in plain sight on a footbridge with people running around you, I think there's this question. We are known internationally for our strict, strict gun laws, so there's also the image of a man holding a gun pointing it at civilians daylight.
But they thought there were no guns in Australia.
They felt very smug, didn't we Like every time they used to be mass shooting in America, people would say, thank Heavens that you know that our government enacted strict gun laws after Put Arthur, which was almost thirty years ago, and we thought that this wasn't able to happen.
I think that gun thing is huge. I had people from the US asking me how did they get these guns. The second thing is, if I'm frank, I think a lot of people in America and internationally don't are not aware of Australia's large Jewish population. Well, as you pointed out, it's not large. It's less than a hundred thousand people.
They don't think of Australia as a place where this kind of terrorism or violence happens, so you think of it as a place where people are pretty much unified, where this kind of violence is not a staple.
The other two things are that this is arising anti Semitism is being felt all over the world, so this is something that is not just a local Australian issue. It is something that has been enormously felt.
And it also just pierces everyone's sense of safety in the sense that Australia was seen as the safest, So if this is happening in Australia, people think it really can happen anywhere.
The second thing is the proliferation of footage. So that there were so many people there and it was in a public area means that there are so many videos. In almost real time, we were getting images and videos of those men standing on that bridge. We then got the incredible footage which we're going to get to of a man intercepting one of the alleged terrorists. I think even the footage of everyone running like.
That, every life savers. I mean it was all just was like something out of a nightmare. Yep.
The thing is that this kind of horror is very unusual in Australia, but it is happening elsewhere a lot more often. And to that point, I wanted to talk about a contrast that I observed yesterday between two tragedies
unfolding on the same day. And I bring it up not because a mass shooting in the United States is especially exceptional now, but because I found the contrast between how the two national leaders responded really instructive to how Australians can be feeling in this moment about our leaders.
The mass shooting at Brown University, there was a lot of confusion, as there often is with mass shootings, and there was a very long man hunt that took place after these students had been shot while they were reviewing for their final exams, and Donald Trump posted on social media that a suspect was in custody. Now, this was at a time when students were locked in their dorms.
They didn't know what was happening. This person who had shot students was on the loose in this very small, close knit college town, and he posts on social media, Everything's fine, the suspect is in custody. You can go about your business. Fifteen minutes later, he had to recount that post, and he had to say.
Actually, I was wrong.
I have to say that watching Anthony Albanese's press conference yesterday, Setting aside the longer you or any kind of political concerns, I just want to contrast the responses of the two leaders, because he got up at a moment when we also didn't know a lot about what had happened at BONDI. We still don't know all the facts, and he refused to give into speculation, or to make divisive statements, or
to flame any kind of anger or or bitterness. Instead, he just struck what I thought was a really appropriate he said, and I want to read it because I thought it really hit the right note. An attack on Jewish Australians is an attack on every Australian, and every Australian tonight will be like me, devastated by this attack on our way of life.
I completely agree, and.
I think the Trump example speaks to the failures and shortcomings of social media at moments like that, and how you have this instinct to turn on the news because you know that the news will blur things that are not appropriate for all of us to see in the aftermath.
And literally the imagery.
Yes, yes, I know, in the aftermath you can, like I was terrified to go on Instagram or TikTok or anything because you can be bombarded with images you will never ever forget. And the misinformation is so unhelpful, the misinformation about other suburbs. And then you've got new rumors flying, yeah, exactly right, and you've got New South Wales Police and dedicating resources to either investigating those rumors or having to
communicate with the wider public that they're not true. And I think that even thinking of the social media band for all it's you know, imperfections, and we won't go into that, but I just thought, if there is a moment where it would be great for young people not to have access to social media, it is this moment.
It is interesting that because I still obviously spoke to my kids about what they're about to see on social because kids are still on social Yeah, you know, this is not the time to go into this, but they are still all on social media. I spoke to them straight away about you don't want to see this, like, you really don't want to see this, and I don't think they do want to see it, but I know they will see it, you know, so you I think that as a parent, it's one of the things that
frustrates people. I think about having that power taken out of our hands. About once there was a time when it was like turn off the news, don't put on the radio, you know, and it felt like you were in control of what your children were going to consume. But I know that even if my kids aren't going to go hunting for that footage, they will be shown
it at school today. They will see it inevitably, and so that means that it's changed kind of your responsibility to what to tell them about it, because I don't want them to hear all that stuff without first of all, hearing something a bit more responsible and appropriate. Not that there's any way to soften just such a horror, you know, the horror of this. It's unprecedented in Australia, and that's so important. But that was one of the important things
to say to my kids. This is incredibly rare. Here I will say too, just so everybody understands this, because one of the things about watching a news story unfold like this on social is, everybody gets very impatient for why won't you call it what it is? For example, last night on the thing, it was like say that it was terrorism, and the traditional news won't do that
until it has been called that by the authorities. And in this instance, it was called that relatively quickly because it was very very clearly terrorism in less than three hours, yes, and so then all the media could report that. But what you see on social until that happens is this boiling anger about why won't you say this and why won't you say that? And I think it's interesting for everyone to understand kind of why.
And I think the aftermath from Chris Mins to Anthony Albernezi.
Chris Mins, the Premier of New South Wales, was or sorry outstanding. Yes, yeah, he has been outstanding on going. But I wanted to ask you guys as people who aren't Jewish. I mean, obviously the Jewish community is just in such deep shock and distress and we can't even All they want to do is gather with my community, but synagogues are closed on the advice of police.
We can't gather.
And when you know Chris Mins or whoever is saying, and the police commissioner, we will increase resources.
It's like, I don't know what else.
Could people could do, because the levels of security around any Jewish place of worship, Jewish school, Jewish preschool, Jewish gathering of any kind is so unbelievable.
I don't know what else you could do.
And the terror threat has been probable for a while, and there was a question about whether that is going to increase, and I was confused about the meaning of probable because it was then said there's a fifty percent chance, and I was like, fifty percent chance, when now any moment they can't say they say fifty percent chance in a twelve month period of there being a terror attack
that has obviously happened, they've not increased it. And I think you can tell from listening to the head of AZO and listening to the Police commissioner that there is a lot of intelligence that we are not privy to and that they are now compiling. But I agree you think even with all of that intelligence and that you would think that even a gathering of Jewish people that there would be increased security.
I don't know what you could have done really to I mean.
There's going to be a lot of questions over the next.
What's interesting to me, though, is, as I said, Jewish people have been talking about the rise in anti Semitism, the fact that there are Nazis demonstrating in the streets. We have been talking amongst ourselves. We have shrunk away from the world. We have been fearful on a day to day basis for the last few years. What I'm interested to understand from you guys is I've noticed that this seems to be affecting people who aren't Jewish very deeply.
What do you think that Why do you think that is?
Do you think it would have been different had it happened in a synagogue and you could have kind of gone I don't mean to discount it, but you know that whenever a tragedy like this happens, you sort of logically look for reasons why that couldn't have been new. But do you think the fact that it was BONDI just makes everyone think and gun's what's unsettling.
I think it's what Amelia said earlier about the point of terrorism, because this was terrorism, this is walk Obviously the target of this was a Jewish celebration. But as we spoke about at the beginning, there are thousands of people on that beach. It does affect every Australian because our very sense of safety was struck at by these people, these terrorists, and that's the point that they're trying to make.
I want to ask you, though, Miya, because when we're going to get in a minute to how people can help. But one thing that people keep saying is wrap your arms around your Jewish friends and reach out. Is that what you want people to do? And what does that look like? And does it feel in any way a little empty?
No, it really doesn't.
And again I can only speak for myself, but one of the things that has touched me the most has been people reaching out, like to just say I'm thinking of you. Just send an emoji, just like if you know someone who is Jewish, just check on them because they're devastated and they're scared. And it means a lot because it can feel very very lonely, you know, it can feel like, yeah, it can just feel very lonely.
And it's felt like that the last few years. And you know, without wanting to be self pitying or anything, it's some of the best conversations I have about this kind of thing is with my Muslim friends and my Christian friends and my Catholic friends, people who are of deep faith, and they are always the first person to reach out.
They always always.
And I think that the in some ways.
This made me think of christ Church, and that the innocence of being in a place of worship and an attack based on faith in that in that moment, which was just so horrific, I think that speaks to we are a country founded on multiculturalism and on safety and understandings. That's why people Australia.
You know, my parents and my father as families are immigrants from South Africa, and they left because of as a political protest against apartheid in the sixties. Because and they chose Australia because it was a land of peace and tolerance and multiculturalism and respect for people who don't share your background or.
Your faith and on. And that's what's so deeply shocking about this right.
On that I think watching the response unfold on social media and watching what is inevitably and frustratingly and anti immigration backlash that will then move into Islamophobia and suggest that why were they in our cut like you saw that come so immediately, and you think that is along the same continuum. No one wants to as the hate, but as the hate that just led to this massacre.
Well that's exactly what terrorists want as well. And to your earlier question me, I think it's a really interesting one, and you made me pause and think about why it shook me so deeply, And I think it's because these acts of terrorism are designed to make us doubt ourselves and to make us doubt that our country can hold together. So if you think about nine eleven, that was sort of taking aim at the very financial heart of a city that basically runs on business and finance. And that's
why that was such an effective act. The symbolism of it and this giant building in a city that is known for its skyscrapers, or the London Tube bombings, that is a city that runs on the tube.
That's their arteries of that city.
And then of course the Bali bombing was striking an island which really depends and relies on tourism and the idea of people coming there to have a good time and to sustain the Balinese economy. This is how terrorism works, and so in choosing a beach, you are really also trying to get at the very foundations of this society, which and what we say is at the beach, everyone is equal.
It's true.
And today is the eleventh anniversary of the Lin Cafe siege and the two people that lost their lives so tragically in.
That terrorist attack.
And it's only what two years, less than two years since Bondai junction and I think Westfield attack, Yeah, the Westfield attack, which was it was not terrorists, that was not terrorism, that was a loan attacker. But what that did to sow the seeds of discomfort within a community that you could just be going along doing your shopping with your family, but for the grace of God, which is of this this feels like that all over again.
We're going to be back in a moment to talk about how you can help and the people who did help on the day. The entire world is talking about Ahmed al Hmed today. He is the white T shirt guy, the man who wrestled the gun from the hands of one of the terrorists right as he was aiming it at innocent families running to hide from his bullets. Al Ahmed is in hospital today. After he took that gun, he pointed it at the shooter, but he didn't pull
the trigger. He put the gun down, he put his hands up, and he was under fire from the second shooter on the bridge, and he took a bullet in the shoulder as the second shooter was shooting from the bridge. Today, we've learned a little bit more about Hmed because his cousin, who was with him last night, has spoken outside hospital, and we found out a few more things about him we did.
We know that he came from Syria more than a decade ago, and he's a father to two little girls. And there was this really moving detail which I just think illustrates the connection between so many communities in US. But he was walking through the festival and they offered him food and he was sort of on his way to get a coffee, but only moments later that community was being horrifically shot at.
HMED's cousin says that that was about ten minutes before they found themselves caught up in all this, and he says that Ahmed said, just before he went into tackle the gunment, he told his cousin, I'm going to die.
He said, I want my family to know that I went down trying to save lives.
It's incredibly moving, and you know, the world is, as I've said, the world is calling him a hero, and I think this probably fewer times that that word is more apt. Yeah, his actions and the fact that, as you said before, Jesse, that it was caught on films so clearly have absolutely stunned the world. There are articles about that man in British newspapers all over American side.
And look, even Donald Trump mentioned him, and he's really I think the whole world's talking about him today.
I mean, what a hero it was.
So you know, they always say when you're feeling absolutely despair, look for the helpers and you need to have your spirits lifted. Look to the people who run towards the danger. And armad al Ahmed there's no one who could. He had no experience with guns. He just was a passer by. He wasn't there for the Hunuker celebrations. He just was at the beach.
People are saying it's the most extraordinary footage they've ever seen.
Yeah, and I heard ABC News were speculating that he must have been a plane clothed.
Police officer. They kept saying, I thought, for.
Someone trained in the army, he didn't seem like I had never picked up a gun before. But I was so moved by the way he put the gun down because he was being shot at, and the footage of after he disarmed that man who's sort of cow as if to say, don't shoot me.
But the fact that the average Australian would not even know what way to hold a gun, and that was the thing. He didn't know what to do with it because he had probably never had a gun in his hands before.
I'm sure we'll hear, well, we will hear his story. I'm sure when he gets out of hospital. His family been speaking to the media a little bit today and saying that they're just obviously hoping for a quick recovery for him. The thing is is that his act of bravery it kind of shone a light on all across that beach in that moment, all the little acts of bravery that were happening. There were people who were bystandards.
There were surf life savers sprinting for first aid kits, there were surfers carrying people on their boards as stretchers. And then the paramedics come and they are running into a live fire situation and yes it's their job, but my god, and they are They said that cops were jumping into the ambulances and driving them to hospitals with the the paramedics could keep working in the back because it was all hands on deck. Unprecedented. We've said that a lot today is that Australia is supposed to be
safe and this isn't supposed to happen here. And generally speaking, it doesn't happen here, you know. So it's not like we've got forces of people who are dealing with this every day. And the level of bravery from Ahmed, from the other people on the beach, the parents who are standing in front of their kids, the husband who died protecting his wife from gunfire, the shopkeepers who let people run in and hide in their back I mean this.
It has become like a cliche.
To say look for the helpers, look for the light, as we were saying, But it matters. I think it really matters because you can you can feel so dark and.
So and that's what is. It's about the triumph of light over darkness. It's about that good will triumph over evil.
In that same video, I was struck by two other helpers. There was a man who threw an object, yeah, a powering terrorist, and I just her axposed ere and then I was very moved by this as armored el armored gingerly put the gun by a tree. Another person ran up, I think, just to be by his side because they could see that he was in this extraordinary situation. And the two people, I think it was another man, the two men hid together behind a tree.
And what's remarkable is that that would have been all on instinct, right, And you see people who were at the beach will have had a range of different responses to what happened, whether it was that they froze or they ran, or they fought. And so to see that man working on instinct, that's like the majority of people
are good and they and they want to help. And we're seeing that today with Lifeblood, who has said they've said one thing you can do is donate blood that came directly from the premiere and for some people who need blood, they might need one hundred donations, right.
And they are accused as a Red Blood bank across the road from our office, and they're accused everywhere. There are mobile blood banks being set up because it's going into the holiday season, which already is a really tough time of.
High need for the blood bank.
Also the doctors and the nurses that were called into hospitals yesterday, all the first responders who ran towards the danger, and.
Many who you know within I know through the community, many whom are Jewish and are then dealing with this personal trauma and then having to act and being called on. There were messages going around that New South Wales health workers were kind of going to just as you say, all hands on deck, but to see the lines around the corner and lifeblood to say, okay, we're being inundated,
try and book in. It's just such a reminder that if you have any time off over this period, that it is moments like this that there needs to be supply because they are sending it across states.
And that all time to do.
It's such a practical good thing to do, especially if you have own negative blood.
So that's something that people can do today.
They were saying that even if you can't get in today, you can keep going.
It was all booked out today.
I jumped on last night and I couldn't get in until sort of Wednesday or Thursday this week.
The local member for went with a leg responder also encourages people to donate to local mental health charities, particularly for use to deal with some of the trauma of the community, obviously the community of people who were at the Hannock event, but also the trauma of the community of people who are at the beach that day and who have witnessed.
All of this.
And the Bondai community in general.
Said to me or I've got my whole you know, hundreds of Catholics messaging sending love to the Jewish side of the family and how they would really like to just all stand outside the synagogues this week and just make sure that you know, like and how do you ensure that there's there's safety.
Yeah, that means a lot, you know, that means a lot. And also just be careful of words. Words. You know, words are not violence, but they can lead to violence. And there's been a lot of very inflammatory language about Jewish people over the last few years, particularly on social media, and.
Yeah, it's.
Just the result those things can sometimes lead to horrifying actions, as we saw yesterday.
Out Louders.
Obviously, we're recording this at lunchtime on Monday, and as we're talking details are coming out, so we haven't been sharing names of the victims because we know there is much more to come heartbreakingly, but as we're recording this, the New South Wales Authority say that fifteen people have been killed, plus one of the gunmen. The dead include a ten year old girl. The two gunmen are a
father and son. Forty two people were taken into hospital, including two police officers who remain in a critical condition. Those are the facts as we record this now. But what's behind those facts, of course, is so much pain and fear and heartbreak. And I just want all of the out louders to know that from all of us, we're sending everybody affected an enormous amount of love and if this day is particularly heavy for you, please.
Know that help is available.
You can call life Line on thirteen eleven fourteen and we're going to be back in your ears with something a little bit more like usual programming tomorrow and for the rest of the week.
Goodbye, out loud As, We love you.