The Port Arthur Massacre, April 28, 1996

Just about everyone remembers where they were when they recall some cataclysmic event in their life. When Hobart man Martin Bryant began indiscriminately shooting people at one of Tasmania’s iconic tourism destinations I was entertaining 35 women at home. I was hosting a “girls” lunch for my journalist colleagues and some friends who held responsible positions in government.

The phone rang and it was the Sydney executive producer of the television program I worked for requesting I head to Port Arthur immediately. Port Arthur is about 50 minutes’ drive from Hobart and is the site of the remnants of one of Australia’s most grim colonial penal settlements. At home, mobile phones were ringing furiously as just about every woman there was receiving similar instructions to get across what was happening.

It was the beginning of a shocking time for everyone who was touched by this dreadful event. Martin Bryant killed 35 people. He shot most of them with a high-powered gun. Sitting in the small, modest café at Port Arthur, tourists were confronted by a mad man who aimed and fired at them. Further up the hill from the historic precinct he met a mother with her two little girls. He shot dead all three of them. He kidnapped one man who was later found dead in a nearby guest house which Bryant burnt down. The owners, who Bryant knew, were also dead. It was the birthday of one of those owners.

The media, hearing what was happening in this usually quiet and relatively remote location, assembled with extraordinary speed. The “mainland” journos arrived with their editing and satellite kits. The world soon heard of this unthinkable horror. Bryant, at this stage, had not been captured.

It was a kind of odd atmosphere in the area that had been set aside for us. We were corralled in the Tasmanian Devil Park up the road a few kilometers from the Port Arthur site. It would be the next day before we’d be ferried by bus onto the actual grounds where most of the killing had occurred. At the Devil Park I don’t think the full catastrophe had hit us. The police were incredibly helpful, the Government had done an exceptional job in providing avenues of information but it was still surreal. We were almost jocular – somewhat dismissive. Jokes were told as we warmed our freezing hands over 44-gallon drums filled with burning logs. Bravado? Tough, I can handle anything I come across attitude? Who knows really?

When buses began passing the Devil Park filled with pale people with hollow eyes, the mood changed dramatically. It was dark, the lights were on in the cabins of the buses. You could tell these people had seen unforgettable, brutal death. Fear had frozen their faces.

The grisly task of identifying and removing the shattered bodies was over in a few hours. Some junior police who had to stay on the site overnight tell of the added trauma they endured as they listened to the ugly yelps and growls of the carrion-eating Tasmanian devils which moved in as dark fell.

Bryant was captured the next morning after he set fire to the guest house where he had holed up. He fled the burning building with his clothes alight.

The media contingent was huge. There must have been 50 or more of us on the buses provided to take us onto the historic site the day after the massacre. We were forbidden to enter the café where the bloodiest carnage had taken place. I, for one, was relieved as the remaining evidence of death was enough to remain etched on my brain forever. All this surrounding us and yet someone stole my handbag which I’d left on my seat in the bus. We all left our gear on board when we got off to view another area of Bryant’s murderous rampage. Why would anyone do that, steal a handbag at a moment like this? At the time I dismissed it. Who cares about a bloody handbag when 35 people have lost their lives? It’s just something I’ve pondered in more recent years.

There are too many harrowing stories to relate here. The aftermath of the massacre was as profound as the event itself. Nurses, doctors, police, Port Arthur staff, ambulance officers, clergy, etc., all suffered along with the victims’ families and friends.

Most of the journalists, including myself, received counselling. One of the cameramen with our team was distraught and angry with members of the media pack who appeared unaffected by this catastrophe, who remained distant and even cynical. It was the kind of behaviour I’d witnessed in the early hours of our time at the Devil Park. My reaction to April 28 was, and still is, one of revulsion mixed with deep sorrow for those who witnessed the killing, lost loved ones or patched up the shattered bones and flesh of the injured. One psychiatrist told me trauma is greater when tragedy occurs in peace time, when one least expects to be confronted with terror.

The Port Arthur massacre has had an everlasting and deeply scarring affect on hundreds of people. Families split up, those unable to cope suicided, others still receive psychiatric and psychological support. They will take the pain of the events of April 28 to their grave. Even after 10 years, the memory is raw and tormenting. Interestingly, few ever articulate Martin Bryant’s name. He is in prison but, for a strange and possibly inexplicable reason, every attempt has been made to write the killer out of the script. He is simply too monstrous to exist.