December 4, 2024 • 30 mins
As we mark the 10th anniversary of the tragic Lindt Cafe Siege, we sit down with survivor Louisa Hope for an emotional and insightful conversation about that fateful day in December 2014. A decade later, Louisa reflects on the harrowing events, the lives lost, and the extraordinary resilience that has carried her forward.
In this special episode, Louisa shares her journey over the past ten years—from healing and advocacy to building a legacy of hope through her work in the community. We discuss how the siege shaped her perspective, the lessons she has learned about trauma and recovery, and the importance of honouring the past while looking towards the future.
If you want to hear a detailed account of how the 17-hour siege unfolded inside the cafe, start with Episode 1: The Red Flags.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Approche Production. Welcome to the Sydney Siege on the tenth
anniversary of a day that shocked Australia.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
It is profoundly shocking that innocent people should be held
hostage by an armed person claiming political motivation.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I wasn't in Australia when that day happened at the
Link Cafe. I was living in the UK, and at
the time I remember reading about it and not being
able to believe something like this could happen in the
city I used to live in. At the time, most
Australians thought the same, that a terrorist attack would never
happen in Australia.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
We are being tested today in Sydney.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
But across those seventeen hours in Saint Martin's Place in
the middle of Sydney in December of twenty fourteen, terror
hit Australia.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Our only goal tonight and for as long as this takes,
is to get those people that are currently caught in
that building out of there safely.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
The fifteenth of December twenty twenty four is the anniversary
of the Sydney Siege. Four years ago. I sat down
with Louisa Hope. Louisa is a survivor of the Sydney Siege.
It was a moving conversation. The pain and the anguish
that she and the others in that cafe went through
across the siege is really hard to understand. In re
(01:38):
releasing this podcast, we thought it was important, after ten years,
to make sure this message and what went wrong doesn't
get forgotten. So just a few days ago we ventured
back to Sydney and started in Saint Martin's Place. The
(01:59):
Link Cafe no longer exists. It's now a high end
bottle shop, but inside there's still moving memory the two
people that lost their lives that day, Tory and Katrina.
(02:20):
There's been almost four years.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Wow, has it? Gosh? It just seemed like the other
day that we did that. So much has happened since then,
and so much more. It puts me just personally like
a little thing. Such a little thing. But I'm astounded
at how much media and podcasting and all of that
(02:45):
there's still an interest. It just astounds me that that's
still the case, because I would have thought, well, I
originally thought there'd only be about six months interest in
the whole thing, and then to find that here we
are ten years. But I guess I'm reassured that you know,
there'll be no eleven year anniversary, and that will all
(03:07):
interests will be done after this.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
What are your reflections on that day ten years later.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
One of my reflections is that I am astounded that
it is still so intensely with me. You know, I imagine
that it would fade. However the memory does not. And interestingly,
I was speaking with John O'Brien not so long ago,
and he's an older gentleman, of course, and he said
(03:36):
to me, oh, yes, I'm fine. You know, I'm playing tennis.
And he says, but every day, Louisa, I go to bed,
I think about it before I go to bed, and
I wake up first thing in the morning, and that's
what I think about. And I thought, yes, that's right.
It's just with you. Every day doesn't sort of change.
So there is that. There is also like not only
(03:58):
the things that have been attended to since this seech happened,
but also the things that have not changed and that
remain unattended to, which of course bothers me. You know,
I think, like something so awful for our whole country,
surely we would have done the work to be sure
(04:22):
that we have covered off every issue and every point
where we could have made improvements. However, that's not what
we've done.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
In the next seven episodes of the Sydney Siege, we're
going to cover everything from who was this terrorist and
why was he out on bail? Why didn't police come
in sooner? Why didn't a sniper take a shot? And
then there was the inquest. Lots of people weren't happy
with What are the outstanding issues in your mind?
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Well, to me, one of the most important things, of course,
is that we still do not know why that man
was out on bail. And this is significant because of
the nature of the things that he was in jail
for on remand, and that is, of course, he was
a perpetrator of sexual assault forty three in actual fact,
(05:13):
forty three women individuals separate women who had come forward
to report him. Now, I think to myself, and of
course there is the matter of him and his involvement
in the brutal murder of his ex wife. There's that
as well. However, he went through the system and the
system allowed him to be put on put out on bail,
(05:39):
and you think, what does a man have to do
to be held in prison until his trial? One would
have thought that sexual assault, that many sexual assaults would
have been enough. So what went wrong on that day?
What happened? Where was the mistake made? Is it a
(06:03):
mistake or is it a the law its actual self?
Was there a mistake in the presentation of evidence from
the police. Was the police's fault? Was it the actual
law itself?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Was it?
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Where was Where was the break in the chain of
common decency and recognizing the violence that would have been
involved in those forty three sexual assaults. So that's a
big question for us. We're talking about it more and
more now ten years later. Imagine if we looked at
(06:45):
his particular case ten years ago and gone, oh, there's
something wrong with this, we need to fix it.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Across the ten years since the Sydney Siege, I wanted
to know from Louisa how she thinks it's changed the
narrative of resilience in Australia.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
There's always a discussion about that, and I find and
people say to me, oh, you are so resilient, and
I think, oh, gosh, really, I don't necessarily like there's
no feeling associated with resilience, but I think that what happened,
you see, and this is important when we consider the siege,
(07:24):
there was not only the hours in the cafe. There
was not only the grief and not only the perpetual
ongoing issues arising for us as individuals from the siege.
There is the fact that we experienced it in the
collective as an entire nation, in particular as the city
(07:44):
of Sydney. And you know, I'd have to say that
what happened after the siege when people came in their droves,
they came with flowers, and they came really, I think,
to sort of stand, to stand with us who were
(08:06):
in the cafe, with those who had passed as a result,
but also to sort of defy anyone and sort of
say we won't be pushed around by this. We will
not be terrorized. You know, this has happened, but we
will be our true selves, which is inclusive and collective,
(08:29):
you know. And whilst I was in hospital when the
flowers were being brought into Martin Place, I certainly, you know,
friends were reporting back and we're seeing photographs and things
like that. They were talking about random strangers praying together,
my goodness, and you know, very bravely. A lot of
(08:49):
Muslim women had gone in and I think that that
that is what we take out of what happened that day.
It's the realization that actually this is who we really are.
We really are inclusive, We really are resistant to anything
(09:12):
that would try to divide us, you know, any issue
from overseas. Australians have an inherent resistance to anything that
comes to disrupt our piece. And so I think that
those are good things that we recognize that in ourselves.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
How is how is your understanding of fear and safety
change since since that? Since that day? Do you ever
think about it? Like do you go for a coffee
with a friend and go, Well.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
I go for coffee with friends and I absolutely know
where the exits are, but you know, and that hasn't
really stopped you just sort of it's just like an
automatic thing. And also, you know, I associate more now
with police or retired cops and that kind of thing,
and they do it and I do it too now,
(10:05):
you know, you just sort of check with what's going on,
who's what. So I'm much more mindful in that regard
when I am out and about I think though as well,
because of my mother that day in the cafe, you know,
she was intuitively checking him. She intuitively knew that there
(10:26):
was something not right about that man, and I know
that that wouldn't have changed the fact her intuition would
not have meant that we got up and left the cafe.
But you know, I certainly think now that observing that
in her and the flippant way I dismissed her, I
(10:48):
think now that I am more attuned to my own self,
my own intuition, and more willing to push back than
I ever would have would have been polite before I
pushed back, well not now. So there's that. But with
regard to fear, you know, so the experience of that
intense fear, it's physical, and so I know that now,
(11:17):
and so now I am no longer afraid of fear.
By that, I mean, I know that I could be
afraid in a moment, or I could experience a situation
that's fearful, but I myself now am no longer afraid
of the feeling of it, which is a bit sort
(11:39):
of weird to say, perhaps, But I just mean that
I now know that if I'm in a situation that
might be fearful in the future, that I actually can
control the fear within my own self. I can't necessarily
control the situation, but I can control my own fear
of that situation, and that kind of is liberating in
(12:02):
a way. It's like it's like a little magic pill
that I have received from that siege, you know that,
I'm just not afraid.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Attention. We're seeing another person running there, David. I think that.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
We can read a female emerging from the building is
too live.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
It's just too into the arms of police too, all right.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
So that's just happening as we watch it, and that
looks like it might have it.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
In my hours and days chatting with Louisa about her story,
she never ever talks about the terrorist by name. She
won't give him that dignity. Lots of people who are
involved in the siege have suffered PTSD, and for Louisa
it's no different. But it manifests in a way that
(12:53):
I would never have thought.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
But for me, it was random, violent thoughts. And you think, oh, yeah,
violent thoughts. What's that you know? Is that, oh yeah,
you've made me so mad at to punch your lights out? Well, actually, no,
that wasn't what it was like for me. For me,
it was I was just about to fall off to sleep.
Would regularly happen, and suddenly, out of nowhere would come
(13:17):
this image of extreme violence that had nothing to do
with the siege, but everything to do with the siege.
So it was a thought that would wake me or
just pump that adrenaline through me again and just look,
I'm suddenly bolt upright and oh my goodness, and I'd
have to, you know, go through the process of trying
(13:40):
to calm myself down and fall back to sleep again.
So it was quite disruptive to my life, really, but
I just randomly didn't actually connect it with the siege myself.
And I guess that's why we see professionals, right. So
I was going to a pain specialist who told me
(14:03):
that pain can manifest amotor, psycho emotional pain can manifest physically,
and I was experiencing a lot of pain at that time.
And he also said, and really rather insisted that I
go and see a psychologist. And I said, I'm fine,
I'm not depressed, I'm happy, you know, I'm okay. I
(14:26):
had anything. I think I might have mentioned I had
post euphoric experience after the siege, and so I was
kind of hesitant. I felt I didn't need to He said, no, no, no,
you've had been involved in a traumatic experience, of course
you're going to have some sort of PTSD. Anyway, he
sent me off to a psychologist who worked with police
(14:53):
and also with return veterans. So I thought, Okay, maybe
she's got some sort of experience, you know, in things
I may have had experience into. So I went along
to see her, and then it wasn't long before she
took me into e md Art therapy, which has been
life changing. She would pull up a blank screen in
(15:14):
front of me on my laptop and she would there
would be a bouncing ball, a white ball that looked
about the size of a tennis ball and went point
point point from one side of the screen to the other.
And we decided that we would go through the the
most significant and traumatic experiences through that day of the
(15:37):
siege and through the night, and so we started with
the with Yeah, we started with we started with Torri's
death and just thinking about whether or not we should
(16:00):
record this.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Luisa find's talking about Tory and Katrina hard, mostly because
she doesn't feel it's fair to their family to be
talking about them. I wanted to know if forgiveness has
played a role in dealing with her time in the siege.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
You know, forgiveness is a really interesting thought and experience.
When I was in the actual siege the whole day,
and especially in the night, and especially right at the end,
I remember very vividly when I was thought that we
(16:48):
were going out and I couldn't get mum more Tory's attention.
So I realized that I couldn't leave the cafe without
my mother. So I made that choice to lie down
on the floor, and I was convinced that he was
going to come over instantly and kill me because I
wasn't in the seat that he told me to be in,
and you know, he would have been angry that everyone
(17:09):
else had left, he being of course the gunman. But
so in that moment, in that time, multi layers of
things I was thinking at the same time. You know,
It's like your mind expands in those kind of moments,
And I really thought he would kill me. And so
(17:29):
one thing I knew for sure was that there was
no way that I was going to die and go
to God with anger in my heart. I just thought
that this pathetic man was not worth the risk of
me finding myself on the other side of eternity with
(17:54):
a lump of hate in my heart, you know. So
it was this perpetual process yielding to love. Whilst I
wouldn't say to you that I necessarily had loving thoughts
about him, I certainly was determined that his action was
(18:16):
not going to damage my soul. So therefore I maintain
this perpetual conversation, if you like, with God, that I
would not hate him. So I never never did, actually
have not hated him. Have been extremely angry at him,
(18:40):
but anger is not hate, and so therefore when it
comes to forgiveness, I sort of say, well, I never
let myself hate him to need to forgive him. Through
the Inquest, there were many things that made me very
angry and distressed with individuals and with our system that
(19:06):
I actually had to resolve in spiritual practice to kind
of overcome and to find a point of forgiveness for
those individuals who I perhaps thought should have known better,
but anyway, that's them. I personally found the Inquest to
(19:34):
be traumatic and distressing beyond what you would imagine really
it certainly I wasn't cathartic in any way. If anything,
(19:55):
it prompted me to have a list of things that
really needed attention so it's a different kind of anger,
of course, and a different kind of process within yourself,
but it is legitimate just the same I think, you know,
(20:20):
we think of because what we're talking about is injustice
and the inability or lack of flexibility within our system
that perhaps has allowed for something like the siege to
happen in the first place. So therefore, when you recognize
those injustices and the wrong thinking perhaps all those kind
(20:43):
of things, when you go there, then you have to
deal with the overwhelming frustration of not being able to
simply fix the issue yourself. You have to yield to
the system and hope that people would be good actors
within that system to pursue change, because you know what
(21:06):
it's like in your own life. You see something that's
wrong and you that's wrong, I'll fix it. But it's
not like that when you're dealing with our institutions. So yes,
that's a different kind of patience that you have to have.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Can I add a question, then, how did you feel
about the fact that he was shot dead?
Speaker 1 (21:28):
And has that changed over the ten years?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Was there a relief that Goat he's not around anymore,
or was there any kind of feelings about wishing he
was here to be punished for what he did.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
I certainly felt that I wished he was still here
so we could get to the guts of why and
learn that lesson the fact that he was killed was
in It brought a relief in lots of ways from
the point of view. We were at an inquest and
(22:05):
not at a trial, so that was easier to bear
in some ways. Yes, I am not disappointed that he's
no longer on the planet, but I also am of
(22:27):
the opinion strongly that these kind of circumstances don't come
along every day, thank God, and we have to get
the most out of it that we can. And yes,
so I think of him in that regard. Really, through
the inquest, I learned just what an unsavory, despicable man
(22:48):
he was really. He caused grief wherever he went, really,
and that infuriates me.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
You mentioned John O'Brien. John was able to get out
before those last moments.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
He was one of the first. I believe that's fine.
He was one of the three that got out of
the Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Do are you still in contact with some of the
other survivors.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Yes, we are. We are in contact, not as much
as everyone imagines. It's interesting, Like when I go and
speak different functions, someone invariably asks if we're all still
in contact. I think they just assume like we all
come together and a bit of a club. But actually no,
not really from the point of view of apart from
(23:37):
the lint workers, we were all strangers in that cafe
that day, so we don't have much of a connection.
I see a few of them, and I'm in contact
occasionally with some of them. I caught up with John
for coffee the other day, but we had not been
in touch for a long time, so it just kind
of ebbs and flows. Really. I think everyone's getting on,
(24:00):
you know. All of those young lint workers are all
grown up now, you know, and they've got their lives
and their careers and all that kind of thing, so
they're building their future orreas I'm at a different stage
in my life. I don't have to be busy with
all of that stuff, so I can get on with
(24:21):
the things that are concerned to me. You know. Any
remembrance day, like where you count the time and count
the days, ten years is significant. It's ten years of
(24:43):
loss and grief for those dear families. Tory and Katrino
both strangers to me that day, but I remember them
every day too, you know. So this ten years is
a time for me, I think, like a time of
(25:06):
leveling up and reckoning, you know, from my personal list
of things that I've felt needed to be attended to.
You know, I'm going to just see where we're at,
do a little a tally up, and see what's still outstanding.
So there is that aspect of it for me, kind
of like accounting for what's happened since the siege. And
(25:27):
then there is the moments and the remembrance of grief.
Can't get away from that. But also it's like a
measure for all of us as individuals but also as
a country to think about how we've grown up, or
(25:48):
even if we have grown up since then. You know,
if you have children, you would have noticed the change
in them in ten years. So yes, it's like that
for all of us. When these moments come along. It's
that opportunity to just pause and think about where was
I ten years ago and how have I changed, for
(26:12):
better or worse.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
The next seven episodes of The Sydney Siege is one
woman's story of her time inside the Link Cafe and
how it not only changed her life but changed the
way Australia felt forever. Episode one, The Red Flags examines
the backstory of Man Moness and asks the questions, how
(26:44):
was this monster out on bail when he took hostages
in that cafe in Sydney ten years ago.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
I can here gun fire.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
I'm not well.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
You can hear all of the heavily unpolis going in
right now. I think they've gone, and that could be
they could be started.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Fowing the building climate. We're seeing a lot of flashes.
It looks like gunfire.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
I think that day reminded Australians that we do not
live in isolation from the world. We are very much
part of the good and the bad of the world.
So therefore, as we reflect and we see ourselves at
this point of history, at this point of time, with
all that is happening in the world that is terrifying,
(28:00):
we have a point to contribute to that world and
a point to be aware of how that is impacting
us collectively and how we respond. So we can respond
by pulling back into our Australian bubble, you know, isolated.
You know, we imagine ourselves the big Island, but actually,
(28:23):
you know the world is right here. So therefore we
need to be very sure about ourselves and how we
conduct ourselves individually, but also in the collective, and also
the expectations that we have of our politicians and people
who speak for us. We can't hide from the world,
(28:47):
but being actively ready for whatever comes, and if whatever
comes is something like the siege or something worse, we
don't necessarily have to be afraid or give into the fear,
because there is a way through that. Whatever you will
experience in your own personal life, all of us face
(29:11):
grief at some point, but there is a way through it. However,
we all have within usd the capacity to overcome and
to pursue what's best. I hope we will do that.
Approche Production. Welcome to the Sydney Siege on the tenth
anniversary of a day that shocked Australia.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
It is profoundly shocking that innocent people should be held
hostage by an armed person claiming political motivation.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I wasn't in Australia when that day happened at the
Link Cafe. I was living in the UK, and at
the time I remember reading about it and not being
able to believe something like this could happen in the
city I used to live in. At the time, most
Australians thought the same, that a terrorist attack would never
happen in Australia.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
We are being tested today in Sydney.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
But across those seventeen hours in Saint Martin's Place in
the middle of Sydney in December of twenty fourteen, terror
hit Australia.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Our only goal tonight and for as long as this takes,
is to get those people that are currently caught in
that building out of there safely.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
The fifteenth of December twenty twenty four is the anniversary
of the Sydney Siege. Four years ago. I sat down
with Louisa Hope. Louisa is a survivor of the Sydney Siege.
It was a moving conversation. The pain and the anguish
that she and the others in that cafe went through
across the siege is really hard to understand. In re
(01:38):
releasing this podcast, we thought it was important, after ten years,
to make sure this message and what went wrong doesn't
get forgotten. So just a few days ago we ventured
back to Sydney and started in Saint Martin's Place. The
(01:59):
Link Cafe no longer exists. It's now a high end
bottle shop, but inside there's still moving memory the two
people that lost their lives that day, Tory and Katrina.
(02:20):
There's been almost four years.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Wow, has it? Gosh? It just seemed like the other
day that we did that. So much has happened since then,
and so much more. It puts me just personally like
a little thing. Such a little thing. But I'm astounded
at how much media and podcasting and all of that
(02:45):
there's still an interest. It just astounds me that that's
still the case, because I would have thought, well, I
originally thought there'd only be about six months interest in
the whole thing, and then to find that here we
are ten years. But I guess I'm reassured that you know,
there'll be no eleven year anniversary, and that will all
(03:07):
interests will be done after this.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
What are your reflections on that day ten years later.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
One of my reflections is that I am astounded that
it is still so intensely with me. You know, I imagine
that it would fade. However the memory does not. And interestingly,
I was speaking with John O'Brien not so long ago,
and he's an older gentleman, of course, and he said
(03:36):
to me, oh, yes, I'm fine. You know, I'm playing tennis.
And he says, but every day, Louisa, I go to bed,
I think about it before I go to bed, and
I wake up first thing in the morning, and that's
what I think about. And I thought, yes, that's right.
It's just with you. Every day doesn't sort of change.
So there is that. There is also like not only
(03:58):
the things that have been attended to since this seech happened,
but also the things that have not changed and that
remain unattended to, which of course bothers me. You know,
I think, like something so awful for our whole country,
surely we would have done the work to be sure
(04:22):
that we have covered off every issue and every point
where we could have made improvements. However, that's not what
we've done.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
In the next seven episodes of the Sydney Siege, we're
going to cover everything from who was this terrorist and
why was he out on bail? Why didn't police come
in sooner? Why didn't a sniper take a shot? And
then there was the inquest. Lots of people weren't happy
with What are the outstanding issues in your mind?
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Well, to me, one of the most important things, of course,
is that we still do not know why that man
was out on bail. And this is significant because of
the nature of the things that he was in jail
for on remand, and that is, of course, he was
a perpetrator of sexual assault forty three in actual fact,
(05:13):
forty three women individuals separate women who had come forward
to report him. Now, I think to myself, and of
course there is the matter of him and his involvement
in the brutal murder of his ex wife. There's that
as well. However, he went through the system and the
system allowed him to be put on put out on bail,
(05:39):
and you think, what does a man have to do
to be held in prison until his trial? One would
have thought that sexual assault, that many sexual assaults would
have been enough. So what went wrong on that day?
What happened? Where was the mistake made? Is it a
(06:03):
mistake or is it a the law its actual self?
Was there a mistake in the presentation of evidence from
the police. Was the police's fault? Was it the actual
law itself?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Was it?
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Where was Where was the break in the chain of
common decency and recognizing the violence that would have been
involved in those forty three sexual assaults. So that's a
big question for us. We're talking about it more and
more now ten years later. Imagine if we looked at
(06:45):
his particular case ten years ago and gone, oh, there's
something wrong with this, we need to fix it.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Across the ten years since the Sydney Siege, I wanted
to know from Louisa how she thinks it's changed the
narrative of resilience in Australia.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
There's always a discussion about that, and I find and
people say to me, oh, you are so resilient, and
I think, oh, gosh, really, I don't necessarily like there's
no feeling associated with resilience, but I think that what happened,
you see, and this is important when we consider the siege,
(07:24):
there was not only the hours in the cafe. There
was not only the grief and not only the perpetual
ongoing issues arising for us as individuals from the siege.
There is the fact that we experienced it in the
collective as an entire nation, in particular as the city
(07:44):
of Sydney. And you know, I'd have to say that
what happened after the siege when people came in their droves,
they came with flowers, and they came really, I think,
to sort of stand, to stand with us who were
(08:06):
in the cafe, with those who had passed as a result,
but also to sort of defy anyone and sort of
say we won't be pushed around by this. We will
not be terrorized. You know, this has happened, but we
will be our true selves, which is inclusive and collective,
(08:29):
you know. And whilst I was in hospital when the
flowers were being brought into Martin Place, I certainly, you know,
friends were reporting back and we're seeing photographs and things
like that. They were talking about random strangers praying together,
my goodness, and you know, very bravely. A lot of
(08:49):
Muslim women had gone in and I think that that
that is what we take out of what happened that day.
It's the realization that actually this is who we really are.
We really are inclusive, We really are resistant to anything
(09:12):
that would try to divide us, you know, any issue
from overseas. Australians have an inherent resistance to anything that
comes to disrupt our piece. And so I think that
those are good things that we recognize that in ourselves.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
How is how is your understanding of fear and safety
change since since that? Since that day? Do you ever
think about it? Like do you go for a coffee
with a friend and go, Well.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
I go for coffee with friends and I absolutely know
where the exits are, but you know, and that hasn't
really stopped you just sort of it's just like an
automatic thing. And also, you know, I associate more now
with police or retired cops and that kind of thing,
and they do it and I do it too now,
(10:05):
you know, you just sort of check with what's going on,
who's what. So I'm much more mindful in that regard
when I am out and about I think though as well,
because of my mother that day in the cafe, you know,
she was intuitively checking him. She intuitively knew that there
(10:26):
was something not right about that man, and I know
that that wouldn't have changed the fact her intuition would
not have meant that we got up and left the cafe.
But you know, I certainly think now that observing that
in her and the flippant way I dismissed her, I
(10:48):
think now that I am more attuned to my own self,
my own intuition, and more willing to push back than
I ever would have would have been polite before I
pushed back, well not now. So there's that. But with
regard to fear, you know, so the experience of that
intense fear, it's physical, and so I know that now,
(11:17):
and so now I am no longer afraid of fear.
By that, I mean, I know that I could be
afraid in a moment, or I could experience a situation
that's fearful, but I myself now am no longer afraid
of the feeling of it, which is a bit sort
(11:39):
of weird to say, perhaps, But I just mean that
I now know that if I'm in a situation that
might be fearful in the future, that I actually can
control the fear within my own self. I can't necessarily
control the situation, but I can control my own fear
of that situation, and that kind of is liberating in
(12:02):
a way. It's like it's like a little magic pill
that I have received from that siege, you know that,
I'm just not afraid.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Attention. We're seeing another person running there, David. I think that.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
We can read a female emerging from the building is
too live.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
It's just too into the arms of police too, all right.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
So that's just happening as we watch it, and that
looks like it might have it.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
In my hours and days chatting with Louisa about her story,
she never ever talks about the terrorist by name. She
won't give him that dignity. Lots of people who are
involved in the siege have suffered PTSD, and for Louisa
it's no different. But it manifests in a way that
(12:53):
I would never have thought.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
But for me, it was random, violent thoughts. And you think, oh, yeah,
violent thoughts. What's that you know? Is that, oh yeah,
you've made me so mad at to punch your lights out? Well, actually, no,
that wasn't what it was like for me. For me,
it was I was just about to fall off to sleep.
Would regularly happen, and suddenly, out of nowhere would come
(13:17):
this image of extreme violence that had nothing to do
with the siege, but everything to do with the siege.
So it was a thought that would wake me or
just pump that adrenaline through me again and just look,
I'm suddenly bolt upright and oh my goodness, and I'd
have to, you know, go through the process of trying
(13:40):
to calm myself down and fall back to sleep again.
So it was quite disruptive to my life, really, but
I just randomly didn't actually connect it with the siege myself.
And I guess that's why we see professionals, right. So
I was going to a pain specialist who told me
(14:03):
that pain can manifest amotor, psycho emotional pain can manifest physically,
and I was experiencing a lot of pain at that time.
And he also said, and really rather insisted that I
go and see a psychologist. And I said, I'm fine,
I'm not depressed, I'm happy, you know, I'm okay. I
(14:26):
had anything. I think I might have mentioned I had
post euphoric experience after the siege, and so I was
kind of hesitant. I felt I didn't need to He said, no, no, no,
you've had been involved in a traumatic experience, of course
you're going to have some sort of PTSD. Anyway, he
sent me off to a psychologist who worked with police
(14:53):
and also with return veterans. So I thought, Okay, maybe
she's got some sort of experience, you know, in things
I may have had experience into. So I went along
to see her, and then it wasn't long before she
took me into e md Art therapy, which has been
life changing. She would pull up a blank screen in
(15:14):
front of me on my laptop and she would there
would be a bouncing ball, a white ball that looked
about the size of a tennis ball and went point
point point from one side of the screen to the other.
And we decided that we would go through the the
most significant and traumatic experiences through that day of the
(15:37):
siege and through the night, and so we started with
the with Yeah, we started with we started with Torri's
death and just thinking about whether or not we should
(16:00):
record this.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Luisa find's talking about Tory and Katrina hard, mostly because
she doesn't feel it's fair to their family to be
talking about them. I wanted to know if forgiveness has
played a role in dealing with her time in the siege.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
You know, forgiveness is a really interesting thought and experience.
When I was in the actual siege the whole day,
and especially in the night, and especially right at the end,
I remember very vividly when I was thought that we
(16:48):
were going out and I couldn't get mum more Tory's attention.
So I realized that I couldn't leave the cafe without
my mother. So I made that choice to lie down
on the floor, and I was convinced that he was
going to come over instantly and kill me because I
wasn't in the seat that he told me to be in,
and you know, he would have been angry that everyone
(17:09):
else had left, he being of course the gunman. But
so in that moment, in that time, multi layers of
things I was thinking at the same time. You know,
It's like your mind expands in those kind of moments,
And I really thought he would kill me. And so
(17:29):
one thing I knew for sure was that there was
no way that I was going to die and go
to God with anger in my heart. I just thought
that this pathetic man was not worth the risk of
me finding myself on the other side of eternity with
(17:54):
a lump of hate in my heart, you know. So
it was this perpetual process yielding to love. Whilst I
wouldn't say to you that I necessarily had loving thoughts
about him, I certainly was determined that his action was
(18:16):
not going to damage my soul. So therefore I maintain
this perpetual conversation, if you like, with God, that I
would not hate him. So I never never did, actually
have not hated him. Have been extremely angry at him,
(18:40):
but anger is not hate, and so therefore when it
comes to forgiveness, I sort of say, well, I never
let myself hate him to need to forgive him. Through
the Inquest, there were many things that made me very
angry and distressed with individuals and with our system that
(19:06):
I actually had to resolve in spiritual practice to kind
of overcome and to find a point of forgiveness for
those individuals who I perhaps thought should have known better,
but anyway, that's them. I personally found the Inquest to
(19:34):
be traumatic and distressing beyond what you would imagine really
it certainly I wasn't cathartic in any way. If anything,
(19:55):
it prompted me to have a list of things that
really needed attention so it's a different kind of anger,
of course, and a different kind of process within yourself,
but it is legitimate just the same I think, you know,
(20:20):
we think of because what we're talking about is injustice
and the inability or lack of flexibility within our system
that perhaps has allowed for something like the siege to
happen in the first place. So therefore, when you recognize
those injustices and the wrong thinking perhaps all those kind
(20:43):
of things, when you go there, then you have to
deal with the overwhelming frustration of not being able to
simply fix the issue yourself. You have to yield to
the system and hope that people would be good actors
within that system to pursue change, because you know what
(21:06):
it's like in your own life. You see something that's
wrong and you that's wrong, I'll fix it. But it's
not like that when you're dealing with our institutions. So yes,
that's a different kind of patience that you have to have.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Can I add a question, then, how did you feel
about the fact that he was shot dead?
Speaker 1 (21:28):
And has that changed over the ten years?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Was there a relief that Goat he's not around anymore,
or was there any kind of feelings about wishing he
was here to be punished for what he did.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
I certainly felt that I wished he was still here
so we could get to the guts of why and
learn that lesson the fact that he was killed was
in It brought a relief in lots of ways from
the point of view. We were at an inquest and
(22:05):
not at a trial, so that was easier to bear
in some ways. Yes, I am not disappointed that he's
no longer on the planet, but I also am of
(22:27):
the opinion strongly that these kind of circumstances don't come
along every day, thank God, and we have to get
the most out of it that we can. And yes,
so I think of him in that regard. Really, through
the inquest, I learned just what an unsavory, despicable man
(22:48):
he was really. He caused grief wherever he went, really,
and that infuriates me.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
You mentioned John O'Brien. John was able to get out
before those last moments.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
He was one of the first. I believe that's fine.
He was one of the three that got out of
the Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Do are you still in contact with some of the
other survivors.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Yes, we are. We are in contact, not as much
as everyone imagines. It's interesting, Like when I go and
speak different functions, someone invariably asks if we're all still
in contact. I think they just assume like we all
come together and a bit of a club. But actually no,
not really from the point of view of apart from
(23:37):
the lint workers, we were all strangers in that cafe
that day, so we don't have much of a connection.
I see a few of them, and I'm in contact
occasionally with some of them. I caught up with John
for coffee the other day, but we had not been
in touch for a long time, so it just kind
of ebbs and flows. Really. I think everyone's getting on,
(24:00):
you know. All of those young lint workers are all
grown up now, you know, and they've got their lives
and their careers and all that kind of thing, so
they're building their future orreas I'm at a different stage
in my life. I don't have to be busy with
all of that stuff, so I can get on with
(24:21):
the things that are concerned to me. You know. Any
remembrance day, like where you count the time and count
the days, ten years is significant. It's ten years of
(24:43):
loss and grief for those dear families. Tory and Katrino
both strangers to me that day, but I remember them
every day too, you know. So this ten years is
a time for me, I think, like a time of
(25:06):
leveling up and reckoning, you know, from my personal list
of things that I've felt needed to be attended to.
You know, I'm going to just see where we're at,
do a little a tally up, and see what's still outstanding.
So there is that aspect of it for me, kind
of like accounting for what's happened since the siege. And
(25:27):
then there is the moments and the remembrance of grief.
Can't get away from that. But also it's like a
measure for all of us as individuals but also as
a country to think about how we've grown up, or
(25:48):
even if we have grown up since then. You know,
if you have children, you would have noticed the change
in them in ten years. So yes, it's like that
for all of us. When these moments come along. It's
that opportunity to just pause and think about where was
I ten years ago and how have I changed, for
(26:12):
better or worse.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
The next seven episodes of The Sydney Siege is one
woman's story of her time inside the Link Cafe and
how it not only changed her life but changed the
way Australia felt forever. Episode one, The Red Flags examines
the backstory of Man Moness and asks the questions, how
(26:44):
was this monster out on bail when he took hostages
in that cafe in Sydney ten years ago.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
I can here gun fire.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
I'm not well.
Speaker 3 (27:13):
You can hear all of the heavily unpolis going in
right now. I think they've gone, and that could be
they could be started.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Fowing the building climate. We're seeing a lot of flashes.
It looks like gunfire.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
I think that day reminded Australians that we do not
live in isolation from the world. We are very much
part of the good and the bad of the world.
So therefore, as we reflect and we see ourselves at
this point of history, at this point of time, with
all that is happening in the world that is terrifying,
(28:00):
we have a point to contribute to that world and
a point to be aware of how that is impacting
us collectively and how we respond. So we can respond
by pulling back into our Australian bubble, you know, isolated.
You know, we imagine ourselves the big Island, but actually,
(28:23):
you know the world is right here. So therefore we
need to be very sure about ourselves and how we
conduct ourselves individually, but also in the collective, and also
the expectations that we have of our politicians and people
who speak for us. We can't hide from the world,
(28:47):
but being actively ready for whatever comes, and if whatever
comes is something like the siege or something worse, we
don't necessarily have to be afraid or give into the fear,
because there is a way through that. Whatever you will
experience in your own personal life, all of us face
(29:11):
grief at some point, but there is a way through it. However,
we all have within usd the capacity to overcome and
to pursue what's best. I hope we will do that.
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