NSW premier Chris Minns speaks after Westfield Bondi Junction stabbings

Australian Community Media

NSW premier Chris Minns said he was grateful for the men and women who "cornered and confronted a murderer" as well as NSW Police Inspector Amy Scott who "saved many, many lives".

Transcript

00:00 Well look, I appreciate you all being here for what is a very sad day in the history of New South Wales.

00:05 I'm joined with some of my parliamentary colleagues as well as the Commissioner for Police

00:09 and the Commissioner for New South Wales Ambulance to speak about the events of the last 48 hours.

00:15 Of course, Sydney has suffered a horrifying and violent attack on innocent people

00:21 who were doing something everybody does on the weekend and that is going shopping with their family and their friends.

00:27 The individual stories of those who have been killed, the complete strangers rushing in to help

00:33 as well as acts of courage and bravery mean that whether you know the individuals who have been killed or not,

00:39 you're grieving today. And the entire state will have to get behind those families in the days ahead

00:45 as they recover and they go through the inevitable grief associated with such a horrifying, horrifying event.

00:52 We're going to do our best to answer questions today. Inevitably, when you've got a major criminal investigation like this one,

01:00 perhaps it will be more questions than answers, but it's very important that the people of New South Wales know

01:06 that the inquiry didn't end yesterday. The investigation continues and across the entire government

01:12 we will do everything we can to ensure that we've got accurate information that's presented to the people of New South Wales

01:18 to prevent acts like this from happening again. Look, I can understand that in circumstances like this

01:26 many in the community will feel real anger. We'll have to process that grief in the days ahead,

01:32 but it's very important to say that New South Wales will bounce back. We're a strong community.

01:38 And if I could point and highlight some of that strength in the last 24 hours,

01:43 firstly for the doctors, the paramedics, as well as the nurses in our public hospitals that worked around the clock

01:50 to save lives and did an amazing job in difficult circumstances. To the ordinary members of the public

01:56 that cornered and confronted a murderer in the Westfield Shopping Centre, showing what I would call

02:04 instinctive bravery under terrible circumstances. And of course Inspector Amy Scott, who ran towards danger,

02:13 showed professionalism and bravery and without a shadow of a doubt saved many, many lives in the last 24 hours.

02:21 I know that many people, because of the number of those that have been killed, may take cold comfort from this fact,

02:28 but nonetheless it is a fact. And that is that the best in this state confronted one of the worst acts we've ever seen.

02:37 And we are very, very grateful for the men and women that stood up in Bondi Junction in the last day.

02:43 I'm going to hand over to the Police Commissioner.

02:45 Thank you, Premier. There was an operational briefing provided this morning where we outlined the name of the offender.

02:57 There is still much work to be done. What stands behind me is a very active crime scene.

03:04 Investigators have been here overnight and will be here all day today and maybe into the night.

03:11 As you know, the Shopping Centre is closed while police deal with what was a very confronting crime scene

03:19 over a broad area in the Shopping Centre. My thoughts go out to the families of those who have been murdered,

03:27 to those that have been injured and to those people that were in the Shopping Centre and, as the Premier has said,

03:34 showed a great deal of courage yesterday. But also to the emergency services and of course the police officers

03:41 who responded to this very traumatic scene. And the actions of Inspector Amy Scott had no doubt prevented the loss of additional lives.

03:54 As we've reported, six people were murdered and up to 12 people are still in hospital, including a nine-month-old infant.

04:04 And today I understand the families have identified two of those victims.

04:11 And it may be some time before we can identify all of the victims because some family members do not reside in Australia.

04:21 So this will be an active investigation for many days and perhaps weeks while we identify not only the movement of the offender,

04:33 not just yesterday, but the hours, the days, the weeks, his life leading up to yesterday.

04:41 And it will take some time to work with the families. A family liaison officer has been appointed to each family

04:50 for us to work with them in what is an extremely distressing time for them. Thank you.

04:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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