‘Unspeakable horror’: Australia marks 30 years since Port Arthur Massacre
Anthony Albanese has deplored the “unspeakable horror” of the Port Arthur Massacre, as Australia marks 30 years since its worst mass murder.
On 28 April 1996, Martin Bryant killed 35 people and injured 23 others in a violent attack in the Tasmanian tourist hotspot of Port Arthur.
The attack sparked gun laws that banned semi-automatic and shotguns, drastically restricted firearms licenses, and led to the implementation of a national buyback plan that destroyed more than 650,000 firearms.
“30 years after the Port Arthur massacre, the horrific, indiscriminate cruelty of that day remains incomprehensible,” the Prime Minister said in a statement.
“Australia stands today to remember 35 people whose lives and futures mattered so much.
It was brutally stolen from them just for being there.
“We think of everyone whose world has been shattered by the loss of those who lost their lives.
In the bright center of their lives, their love is wrapped helplessly around nothingness.”
Among the dead were six-year-old Alannah and three-year-old Madeline Mikac.
Escaping from Port Arthur’s historic district, Bryant stopped where the young girls were walking with their mother, Nanette.
He fatally shot Mrs. Mikac and Madeline before shooting Alannah as her older daughter escaped.
Widowed and childless, Walter Mikac spearheaded gun reforms in the wake of the massacre and co-founded the Alannah and Madeline Foundation to support child victims of violent crimes.
Reflecting the “extraordinary courage that emerges from devastating suffering”, Mr Albanese praised Mr Mikac for “channelling his devastating loss into a call for national action on arms”
reform, writes Prime Minister Howard with a message that has resonated for decades:
‘Be strong, take action now’”.
“Australia is a better place because the government and parliament of the day
We came together to answer Walter’s call,” Mr. Albanese said.
“This is what we hold onto, the enduring memory that somehow remains in the midst of the most horrific events.
The best of dark humanity has found a way to shine.
“Thirty years after that day when our nation stood, let us stand together as we stood together then, united in love for all those who never returned home.”
Bryant, now 58, is serving 35 life sentences at Hobart Risdon Prison.
