Port Arthur Massacre: Killer Martin Bryant’s disturbing Gold Coast holiday before 1996 slayings
It was 25 years ago this week that Martin Bryant killed 35 people in the Port Arthur massacre, Australia’s worst-ever mass shooting. But he had a disturbing connection to the Gold Coast.
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MOST Australians old enough remember where they were on the afternoon of Sunday, April 28, 1996.
The Port Arthur massacre is seared into the nation’s consciousness as our worst mass shooting and changing the course of Australian history.
The repercussions of Martin Bryant’s murderous rampage lives on 25 years later among those who lost family and friends, the residents of Port Arthur and through the dramatic gun control laws passed in its aftermath.
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By the time Bryant was captured the morning after the massacre, 35 people were dead, 23 were injured and a nation of millions were left shocked and searching for answers.
Bryant was arrested by police after setting fire to the Seascape bed and breakfast cottage.
Watching on in shock from the Gold Coast was Bruce and Iris Whiteside who had holidayed there and knew the owners Sally and David Martin, who were found dead at the scene.
“She was a delightful lady,” Mrs Whiteside told the Bulletin at the time.
“You don’t really know what you are getting yourself in for when you book into a bed and breakfast but there were no problems.
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“Sally was a lovely woman.”
Gold Coast political leaders were among the first to call for gun control laws to be ramped up in response.
Mayor Ray Stevens, who himself held a shooting licence, spoke at a special council meeting the next morning.
“You are never going to have a world with no guns and I believe there is a place for legitimate shooting licences,” he said.
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“But surely there has to be a mechanism to stop deranged people … people with demonstrated instability … from getting access to guns.”
Cr Stevens sent a letter to the Mayor of Hobart expressing Gold Coast City Council’s sympathy for the victims and relatives of the tragedy.
``The incident was just an unbelievable tragedy and even more so for Tasmania,’’ he said.
Cr Stevens said the incident had emphasised the need for Australia to have uniform gun laws in all states.
Premier Rob Borbidge, himself a Gold Coast resident, went further, announcing he would work with Labor leader Peter Beattie on a bipartisan review of firearms legislation.
They were joined by new Prime Minister John Howard who said Australia needed to engage in “national soul-searching” and flagged a massive gun buyback scheme.
“It’s something most of us grew up to believe couldn’t happen here,” Mr Howard said.
He joined federal Opposition leader Kim Beazley at a memorial service the next day.
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In a shock twist, just days later, Bryant’s former girlfriend Jenetta Hoani revealed Bryant had visited the Gold Coast a handful of months earlier and exhibited some of the disturbing behaviour to led to his actions at Port Arthur.
Ms Hoani, then 17 years old, was in a relationship with Bryant for eight months and visited Surfers Paradise on a three-day holiday for New Year’s Eve 1995.
“He said we’re going to Surfers Paradise and I said ‘no’,” she told media at the time.
“But he said he’d have to drop me if I didn’t go because he didn’t want to go by himself.
“We went to a bar (in the hotel) and I asked for Baileys and the lady asked me for some identification and I said I didn’t have any.
“I was really scared and he got up, grabbed her by the wrist and said: ‘How dare you do this. Come up to reception’.
“That was the worst time I have seen him that angry.”
The pair stayed at the Oasis Room at the Sheraton Mirage.
Even in 40-degree heat, Bryant wore a white suit and used an umbrella for shade as they visited the Coast’s various theme parks.
“It was so embarrassing,” she said.
Ms Hoani said she never felt physically threatened by Bryant although he often spoke in a demeaning way to restaurant staff.
“It wasn’t what he’d do, it was the way he would talk to them, as if they were crap, like they were dirt,” she said.
“When he’s in a ritzy hotel or something, he’ll put on the English accent so they’ll treat him with more respect.
“I thought maybe he was putting on airs to try and impress people.”
Ms Hoani ended the relationship after returning from the Gold Coast holiday.
Ultimately strong gun control laws were passed around the nation.
Mr Borbidge, who staked his government’s reputation on supporting these reforms, saw a loss of support from many of the National Party’s traditional rural constituents who turned to One Nation.
He would lose power at the 1998 state election, a result partially blamed on his support for the reforms.
Bryant was jailed after receiving 35 concurrently served life sentences, plus 1035 years without parole.
He will never be released from prison.
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