- Anita Bingham was just 17 and working in the Frances Langford Tea Rooms on April 28 1996.
- As she served soup to tourists she heard a strange popping sound – the start of Martin Bryant’s shooting spree.
- Honoured with a bravery award for her efforts calming customers that day, Anita has faced PTSD and has spoken out in support of the National Fire Arms Register.
Anita spoke to that’s life! in 2023. Here is her story in her own words
‘Love you,’ I said as my dad, Steve, then 52, dropped me off at the historic site of Port Arthur, Tas, then most well-known for being a former convict penal settlement.
Looking the part, dressed in a bonnet and apron, I started work at 10am just as the site was bustling with visitors.
Aged 17, I lived down the road with Dad and my mum Jenny. I’d started working at Port Arthur three months before.
Originally meant to be a waitress in the Broad Arrow Café on the site, I was posted to the Frances Langford Tea Rooms instead.
That lunchtime, April 28, 1996, I was rushed off my feet serving meals, coffees and cakes with another waitress, the manager and an assistant cooking out the back.
I placed a steaming bowl of tomato soup in front of a customer by the window.
Just then, I heard a strange sound, like a single loud pop.
As another bang rang out, it sounded like gunshots.
Must be one of the historic reconstructions, I thought.
But as the popping continued, an eerie feeling descended.
Stepping out, I walked a few metres up the driveway and looked towards the Broad Arrow over the bridge, a five-minute walk away.
Suddenly people flooded out, ducking behind walls.
Backing away as the banging continued, fear lodged in my stomach.
I dashed back inside and the manager hurriedly locked the door behind me.
‘We’ve heard someone’s shooting people,’ she said, deathly pale.
In terror at a gunman on the loose, I rang my big sister Reggie at the fish and chip shop where she worked.
‘There’s a gunman,’ I said nervously. ‘Tell Mum and Dad I’m safe and I love them.’
As customers quivered with fear, I knew we had to keep people calm.
‘Everything will be fine,’ I reassured them, serving up hot drinks and trying to keep a sense of normality, hoping it was true.
After what felt like an eternity, sirens blared and a police helicopter echoed overhead.
Then a sinister silence followed.
The thought of a crazed shooter bursting through the doors was terrifying.
We heard updates over the phone from other people on site. It was like a movie in slow motion.
As word came through by late afternoon that the gunman was gone, the customers were finally allowed to go.
I vacuumed the cafe on complete autopilot.
Finally, at 6pm, I rushed to meet Dad at the local pub.
‘I didn’t know if you were alive,’ he said, holding me tighter than he ever had.
‘I heard some of the waitresses had been shot.’
Still in shock, back home I watched the news in disbelief.
The gunman, 28-year-old Martin Bryant, lived in New Town, Hobart.
Taking two semiautomatic rifles and a 12-gauge shot gun, along with handcuffs, rope, a hunting knife and containers of petrol, he’d driven to the Seascape guest house.
There, Bryant shot the owners David and Sally Martin. He moved on to nearby Port Arthur and into the Broad Arrow Café.
Walking in with a large duffel bag, he bought lunch and ate outside.
Then, inconceivably, he pulled out a rifle and shot at customers. In 15 seconds, he’d killed 12, injuring many more.
Heading to the gift shop next door, he kept hunting victims.
Bryant then moved on, shooting more innocent people in the car park.
I wept, devastated Bryant had shot my lovely pharmacist Walter Mikac’s wife, Nanette, and their three-year-old daughter Madeline, before chasing their older girl Alannah, six, behind a tree and murdering her.
Bryant’s horrific spree continued at a toll booth before ending up in an 18-hour siege back at the Seascape.
He was finally captured the following morning.
In total, Bryant murdered 35 people and injured many more, making it Australia’s deadliest massacre.
‘Why would he do it?’ I cried in disbelief. It was sheer luck I hadn’t been posted to the Broad Arrow Café that day.
If I’d been there…
Bryant’s face haunted my dreams. Given counselling, I was diagnosed with PTSD.
Along with the other cafe staff, I received a bravery award. But I didn’t feel brave – it was what anyone would’ve done.
I was glad when then prime minister John Howard banned automatic and semi-automatic weapons across the nation soon after.
A few months later, I went back to work but knowing what happened made it too hard to stay.
In November 1996, after a guilty plea, Tasmanian Supreme Court Chief Justice William Cox handed Martin Bryant, 29, 35 life sentences without parole.
It meant he would die in jail.
Now 27 years on, I still struggle with PTSD.
I’ll never know why Martin Bryant did what he did, and I’ll always hate guns.
Last December, I was so sad to hear of the shooting deaths of two police constables and a civilian on a remote property north-west of Brisbane.
I am always saddened by any shooting, in Australia or overseas.
I’m speaking out as I support the government’s proposed national firearms registry, that would provide information on everyone holding guns, to help stop the senseless destruction they cause.
And I’ll make sure we never forget those who died that day at Port Arthur.
National Firearms Register latest
After the massacre at Port Arthur, it was proposed that a National Firearms Register be introduced. Current records are held at a state level.
The December 2022 fatal shooting of two Queensland police officers, Constables Rachel McCrow, 29 and Matthew Arnold, 26, along with neighbour Alan Dare, 58, by Nathaniel, Stacey and Gareth Train in Wieambilla, Qld, renewed calls for a National Firearms Register such as was discussed after the Port Arthur massacre.
The register would provide police in any location across the country with immediate up-to-date records of gun licence holders, including the ability to see if a person holds a licence in a different state or territory.
In December 2023 the National Cabinet agreed to implement the register, at a cost of $230 million, and work began in July 2024.
There were calls to speed up the implementation process after the terrible mass shooting at Bondi Beach in December 2025 where 15 people died in an antisemitic Islamic State-inspired terrorist attack on a Hannukah gathering.
The National Firearms Register is currently expected to be operational by mid-2028.
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