On 14 November 2005, bomb threats were made to the Brisbane public transport system. As a result, Brisbane’s CBD was evacuated and public transport systems throughout Brisbane were shut down.
On the 14th, three calls were made to police warning of bombs on buses and trains in Brisbane. All bus and train services in the city were evacuated at 12:00 pm and again at 4:45 pm.
The shutdowns caused major problems for the thousands of people who relied on the services.
At that time, I was working as a journalist at Big Issue Magazine in Brisbane. We received a call from police asking if we could help them find the homeless squatting in Brisbane, who may be unaware of the evacuation.
So I headed off with a police officer to the magazine vendors selling points and their squats in abandoned Brisbane buildings, warning them of the potential danger.
We were still wandering around after the entire CBD had been evacuated. Buses stopped in the streets at 4:45 pm, and remained empty where they stopped. Passengers were told to walk out of the CBD, and a team of workers were assisting the elderly and disabled who couldn’t walk.
Every office building, apartment building, hotel and shop were completely empty. The streets were completely deserted. There were very few cars, just empty buses on the sides of the streets. There was an eerie silence over the entire city at what should have been the busiest time of the day, peak hour.
One has to pause here and give credit to the Queensland Police, SES, Emergency Services, Queensland Government, Australian Defence Force and Brisbane City Council staff who all worked together on short notice to evacuate Australia’s third largest city in just a few hours.
Credit should also go to the journalists and media outlets who broadcast the warnings and evacuation directions with a distinct professionalism, while trying not to cause a panic.
And of course praise should go to the people of Brisbane, who evacuated the city centre with calmness, patience and more than a little distinctive Aussie humour. No stampedes, no panic in the streets, just tens of thousands of people walking with some bemusement out of the CBD.
At around 5:30 pm, the police officer and myself were satisfied that we had found every streetie that we could, and we also evacuated the area. Strangely, I didn’t feel panicked at all, having spent many years as an SES and Bush Fire Brigade volunteer. I simply went home, and watched the reports on TV.
At 7.32 am on 15 November, another call was made to police telling them to remain vigilant and “keep their eye on the ball.” Each of the four calls had been made from a different payphone in suburban Brisbane.
On the night of 15 November, Rodney Bruce Watson, a 46-year-old truck driver from Munruben, was arrested and charged with four counts of making bomb threats.
Police reported that his fingerprints had been found on three of the four payphones used to make the bomb threats, although Watson’s lawyer said Watson claimed he had not “been to a phone box in years.”
Watson appeared in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on 16 November. He did not enter a plea and made an application for bail. The bail hearing was adjourned, pending a psychiatric report on Watson, and he was remanded in custody.
Watson reportedly said to police that he had been “inspired by the recent arrests of terrorist suspects in southern states,” and he subsequently had two applications for bail denied on the basis that there was a risk that he would reoffend.
On 7 March 2006, Watson pleaded guilty to four counts of making a bomb threat, and on 28 July was sentenced to three years in prison, to be suspended after 12 months, followed by a supervision period of three years.
With time already served this meant Watson was released from prison in November 2006.
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