In April 2024, a violent attack at Westfield Bondi Junction stunned the public and sparked a national conversation about emergency response. The inquest highlights something deeper: the gap between having a plan and being ready to act on it..
The Bondi Junction timeline shows us that in emergencies, seconds matter – and those seconds are won or lost in how often we train for ambiguity, not clarity.
Physical security preparedness training needs to be reimagined: as an everyday rhythm.
Physical Security Preparedness Training for Real Conditions
Preparedness often gets treated like architecture: something you build once and inspect occasionally. But real-world threats don’t play by architectural rules.
They happen when someone is on a break.
Or when it’s loud.
Or when the shift is thin.
In these moments, the question is “Has this plan lived in our people recently enough to move through them without hesitation?”
Readiness isn’t a status. It’s a rhythm. And if it’s not played regularly, the tempo falls apart.
The First 90 Seconds Are Never Neat.
Much of the Bondi Junction timeline reveals a pattern familiar to any complex environment: things didn’t go “wrong”. They went uncertain. The control room was momentarily empty. The right message didn’t play. Calls to emergency services overlapped or lagged. None of this is scandalous. It’s normal. And that’s the point.
Crisis rarely announces itself clearly. It begins in a murky middle…in what one witness called “a moment of confusion.” And unless that moment has been rehearsed, it elongates. We wait. We verify. We assume someone else is acting.
That’s not a flaw. It’s human. Which is exactly why frequent, small, real-feeling practice is so essential.
Don’t Make the Practice Perfect. Make It Possible.
Most organizations still view drills as occasional events: half-day table exercises or highly scripted simulations.
But the real opportunity lies in the informal, the small-scale, the inconvenient. Because it better mirrors real life.
- Try running a 15-minute drill when radios are already in use.
- Introduce a scenario when key personnel are out.
- Don’t warn people in advance.
- Let someone junior lead.
The more the friction resembles reality, the more fluid the real response becomes.
Because when a threat unfolds, no one pulls out the plan. They move.
From Infrastructure to Instinct.
One of the most poignant details from the inquest was how advanced the surveillance system was—700 cameras, a designated control room. But the response didn’t hinge on the hardware. It hinged on people being in place, knowing what to do, and doing it without pause.
That transition – from infrastructure to instinct – isn’t automatic. It has to be trained. Lightly. Often. With realism. With repetition. With time to reflect and refine.
What to Do Differently. Quietly, Daily.
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Replace annual with ambient
Trade one big drill for ten small ones. Build response into routine. Make it part of culture, not compliance. -
Practice during imperfection
Disrupt the schedule. Run a scenario at shift change or when staffing is tight. Train the gaps. -
Rehearse the fog
Scenarios shouldn’t start with “an armed attacker is confirmed.” Begin in ambiguity. That’s where the delay lives. -
Make preparedness feel human, not heroic
The goal isn’t individual brilliance. It’s system fluency. Rehearsal is what turns instinct from isolated to collective.
There is deep sadness in what happened at Bondi Junction. No system will ever eliminate that kind of risk entirely.
But we can choose how we respond, not just in the moment, but in the months and years that follow.
The lesson here isn’t about fault, it’s about cadence.
Resilience isn’t built in the moment the alarm is triggered. It’s built in the quiet, unglamorous practice that came before.
