Even after suffering the worst, this beach is us at our best

2 months ago 5

In November this year, I was invited to write a piece about my favourite beach.

As a born-and-bred Bondi girl, I unapologetically made my case that Bondi Beach rightly holds its place as our most famous coastal landmark. I’d written a chirpy piece extolling the virtues of Bondi. I’d joked that Bondi had its detractors as too busy, too Botoxed, too privileged. But at its core, Bondi is the dynamic beating heart of our city. A special gathering place that is teeming with life every day of the year.

A few weeks later, that heart was shattered. An evening on Bondi Beach that was meant to be a celebration of the first night of Hanukkah turned into the country’s worst terror attack.

An appalling act of violence in our beautiful city, on this beautiful beach that is recognisable in almost every corner of the world. Fifteen innocent lives lost. Many more injured. Even more deeply traumatised.

A vigil at the Bondi Pavilion public memorial takes place on December 16.

That night, Sydney changed. Australia changed and now I’m sitting in the NSW parliament, recalled in the week of Christmas, tears hot in my eyes, to deal with urgent legislative reform following this antisemitic terrorist attack right in the heart of Bondi.

It is a tragedy we will remember forever. The darkest of days for all Australians, but particularly for our Jewish community who were targeted in this terrorist attack. Those who lost loved ones that day will always carry that pain.

Yet in the midst of this mournfulness, more than 20,000 people descended on Bondi just one week after December 14 to scream and cry and sing into the pouring rain: this is our beach and we are not going anywhere.

There is no going back, and even the idea of moving forward itself is insufficient to meet this moment. We like the idea of linear things, but the world we live in now is not as simple as that.

Minister for Water Rose Jackson, who was born and bred in Bondi, says healing will take time. It cannot be forced or willed into existence.

It’s curved and contradictory and challenging. You can feel love, gratitude, despair, and anger all at the same time. There can be the most terrible horror and the most remarkable heroism in the same moment. Ahmed al Ahmed showed us that.

NSW Water Minister Rose Jackson with her daughter at Bondi Beach.

Bondi is a little like that too, full of contradictions. It’s old locals in saggy budgie smugglers and new locals in luxury eyewear. It’s people having barbecues and people doing sand sprints. It’s surfers who are in the water every day and tourists visiting for the first time, seen charging into the waves fully clothed as if possessed by some Bondi magic.

a place to come together; a place of profound natural beauty.

The beach itself has always been a place of renewal and rebirth. Tides in and out. First light piercing the black sky. That theme of light breaking the darkness has been drawn on heavily since the terrorist attack, a determined and at times desperately groping attempt to draw meaning from the Hanukkah tradition to explain how we move forward.

I thought perhaps as minister for water I could build on this metaphor with some reflection on how water has healing and blessing qualities in all religions – which is true, even if it sounds a bit trite.

I’ll leave people to draw meaning and peace from these themes as best they can, knowing that healing will take time. It cannot be forced or willed into existence. In the meantime, I’m holding on to my belief that Bondi is the best beach, even carrying this profound wound. Forever altered but at its heart, still the same.

A place to come together. A place of profound natural beauty. A place that will welcome anyone and everyone who comes here to make a life in the sea spray. That being the truest symbol of our Australian way of life.