Don’t Swim or Surf at Sydney Beaches – The Greens have had all the protective shark nets removed!!

But there is no notice for visitors to a beach if there is a working shark net at a particular  beach or not.  So safest to presume there isn’t.

At the current time of starting to draft this article (18th June 2026) the State of New South Wales (NSW) has removed all it shark nets. This means that no beach in NSW has a shark net to save lives of swimmers from shark attack, and that includes surfers.

So it is now become a life and death choice to swim at any beach in NSW despite it being patrolled by life savers.  It is misguided, scary, and too dangerous to go swimming, but them’s the facts.

This Wholly Avoidable Tragedy:

Yep,  The Greens Party campaign has bullied the New South Wales Government to remove all its shark nets along the coastline that have long protected swimmers from shark attacks.  The removal of the nets took place by Monday 30th March 2026.

The Greens Campaign since 2021 and prior:

The Greens have blood on their hands.

This autum time of year is still warm enough to swim in togs along this coastline.  Many are still down the beach and swimming in the sea, locals and visitors alike.  The Easter holiday break (3-5 April 2026) was just days after the removal of the shark nets.

So, how bloody reckless and negligent of the NSW Government to fail to protect public safety at its beaches!  The local volunteer Surf Life Saving patrol season along NSW beaches extends from September through April every year.

Yet many a hardy acclimatised local swimmer of the sea off Sydney do so all year round.  So the shark nets are critical safety measure for coastal beach swimmers up and down NSW 365 days all year round.  The nets provide the reassurance of passive protection.

Whereas other risk mitgation measure require active vigilance and government funding which is unreliably fickle like the wind.

Many local seaside councils, aware of the year round visitation to their beaches also employ professional lifeguards of selected popular beaches All YEAR ROUND as additional caretaker responsibility during and outside the volunteer patrol season.  They know the risks and the statistics will justify the patrol expense and surveillance.

The Greens lather over their ‘climate change’ doomsday cult, yet hypocritically ignore that ocean temperatures might be rising into the winter months, so attractive to more sea swimmers.  Hello!

Almost predicably given multiple shark attacks recenty in January 2026, guess what’s happened of late?

A regular female swimmer at Sydney’s Coogee Beach at around 11am Saturday 13th June 2026 was savagely mauled by a reported Great Whte Shark. It was reported between 3.5m and 4m long, and the swimmer was just 30 metres off the beach in shallow water, just beyond the beakers.  This author has swum the beach lap swim at this location hundreds of times in the past.

The shark attack has occurred just two months after Coogee Beach’s shark nets were removed.  The swimmer has since had her left arm amputated and remains fighting for her life in Sydney’s St Vincents Hospital Emergency and ICU!

That Coogee Shark Attack Rescue:

 

Saturday 13th June 2026 (a mild mid-winter):

The following summary is garnered from the media as well as some suggested insight presumptions of news not known or told by the media, by this author, a former surf life saver of ten years and a former local member of Coogee SLSC.

The media reported that “a woman was pulled from Coogee beach at around 11am after being bitten by a shark”.  She was swiming just 30 metres out from the sand just beyond the small beakers so as to get smoother water for swimming (likely freestyle stroke?).

 

But thanks to looney Greens ideology obsessed with shark net removal above all rational considerations, Coogee Beach’s almost century of safe sea swimming history is now in reputational tatters…

 

The sea conditions at the time were reported as being relatively calm and the water clear.  Whilst the Coogee SLSC volunteer ‘summer’ beach patrol season for 2025-2026 had ended at the end of April (well after Easter), the professional lifeguards at popular Coogee Beach patrol all year round 366 days a year.  They also use beach patrol flags to indicate the safest part of the beach sea area to swim between.

The woman was rightly swimming between the beach patrol flags!

But then some unseen large shark suddenly bites her leg and as she desparately tried to fend it off, also deep into her left arm.   The shark drags her as prey briefly under the water surface.

By chance, a paddleboarder close by, Charlie Verco, noticed the attack and raced to the woman’s rescue.  He described holding the barely conscious woman above water with one arm, trying to reassure her as he immediatly started a backpaddling rescue with the other hand back to shore.

Charlie Verco (24) was soon later briefly interviewed stating he is a life guard and he was off duty at the time.  Without question, he saved her life.

Once at waist heigh water depth, awaiting bystanders (Coogee Beach lifeguards and surf lifesavers) met the victim by the paddleboard and carried here to the sand just above the waterline and leapt into action to provide first aid.

On the beach she was quickly treated by on duty lifeguards, and fortuitously also by an off-duty emergency physician who quickly stabilised her (NSW Ambulance Inspector Mike Corlis said) before called-in emergency paramedics soon arrived at the beach scene.

Police and paramedics administered critical advanced first aid onsite.

Paramedic Transfer to Emergency Hospital:

 

The life-threatened injured patient was then transported to the nearest major emergency hospital hospital to have immediate emergency theatre-surgery ASAP.

Well, the ambulance transfer remains a NSW Govermental shambolic logistical convoluted mess and delay, that is multi-moded (by road, then by air, then by road) to the nearest best equipped emergency trauma hospital at St Vincents.

 

This took place via emergency ambulance from Coogee Beach esplanade to the nearby Coogee Oval, where a waiting Careflight helicopter that had just landed, airflighted her towards the nearest major emergency hospital – St Vincents Hospital Sydney, the trip being just a 3 nautical mile direct flight from Coogee Oval.

 

The woman was taken to hospital “semi-conscious and breathing,” Surf Life Saving NSW said in a statement.

However, the St Vincents Hospital Sydney at 390 Victoria Street Darlinghurst is situated in a congested old downtown part of inner Sydney surrounded by residences.  It still has no helipad.  So standard procedure for incoming Careflight helicopters with such emergency patients is to land at the closest nearby former Army Victoria Barracks parade lawn.

 

The flight from Coogee Beach direct to St Vincents of 3 nautical miles would be under 10 minutes, so life saving stuff flying over and avoiding city traffic congestion. What is a life?

Yet the NSW Government’s ignorant and antiquated standard emergency patient combo transfer is backward and substandard in 2026.  It requires the road ambulance from Coogee Beach (or any other Sydney eastern suburbs beach to similarly rely upon awkward multi-transport mode logistics.

Another waiting ambulance from the Victoria Barracks vacant lawn to St Vincent’s Hospital compounds patient transport logistics and adds vital minutes to the patient’s survivability  and recoverability risks.

 

 

This is 2026?

So this woman is fighting for life after being mauled by a shark at one of Australia’s busiest beaches.

Spate of recent shark attacks:

 

The Coogee incident follows a recent spate of fatal attacks along the coastline of NSW and Australia.

The most recent fatal attack in Australian waters happened on June 6, when 35‑year‑old diver Daniel Turpin was bitten by a suspected 4.5‑metre shark while spearfishing with his family off Michaelmas Island near Albany.

His death followed the killing of 38‑year‑old Perth father Steven Mattaboni off Rottnest Island on 16 May, and 39‑year‑old Queensland spearfisher Michael Jensz at Kennedy Shoal south of Cairns on May 24.

Both Western Australian attacks are believed to have involved great whites, while evidence points to Jensz having been taken by a bull shark.

In January, NSW made international headlines after recording four shark attacks in 48 hours.

There were four suspected bull shark attacks in three days across NSW beaches.  Two resulted in people being hospitalised in critical condition, while the other two escaped without serious injuries.  The first of those maulings also occurred in Sydney’s east, near Shark Beach.  Nico Antic, 12, was rushed to hospital in a critical condition after being rescued by mates, police said at the time.  He later died from his injuries.

 

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/woman-attacked-by-shark-at-coogee-beach/75lijsbsh

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‘It just turned into havoc’: Woman in critical condition after shark attack at Coogee Beach
Julie Power, Jessica McSweeney, Kate Aubusson and Rachel Rasker
June 13, 2026
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/woman-bitten-by-shark-at-coogee-beach-20260613-p606hu.html

A 34-year-old woman is in a critical condition after being bitten by a three to four-metre shark at Coogee Beach on Saturday morning.

 

Shark attack at Sydney’s Coogee Beach

The victim, a woman in her 30s. was pulled from the water by members of the public who commenced first aid before the arrival of emergency services. Credit: TNV

“She has quite massive wounds to her left lower leg and her arms,” Corlis said.

The woman was 30 metres offshore when the shark bit her just after 11am, he said.

She was admitted to St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney with serious arm and leg injuries.

Drone footage taken of a shark off Coogee beach in Sydney on Saturday.
Chilling footage shows shark moments after Coogee Beach attack

Randwick Council jet skis patrolled the beach following the attack, with its staff estimating the shark to be at least three to four metres in size.

 

 

Stephen Denneny, director of One Shot Creative, captured images of the shark swimming languidly in Coogee Bay moments after the attack.

The footage shows a patch of dark water that Denneny said was most likely blood, marking the location of the shark attack about 30 metres from shore.

The shark remained in Coogee Bay for 30 to 45 minutes before making its way north towards Gordons Bay and Clovelly, Denneny said.

The victim was pulled from the water by an off-duty lifeguard and members of the public.
The victim was pulled from the water by an off-duty lifeguard and members of the public.
“I’m still in shock … It’s very sad to see,” he said. “I was in the water five minutes before it happened.

“This poor family have to go through all of this. We are praying for the woman and her family.”

Lawrence Chlebeck, a marine biologist with Humane World for Animals Australia, said the shark in Denneny’s video appears to be a great white.

Related Article
Twenty-four-year-old volunteer surf lifesaver Charlie Verco brought in a woman who had been attacked by a shark at Coogee Beach on Saturday morning. Saturday 13th June 2026. Photo: Sitthixay Ditthavong
Shark
‘I couldn’t fight off the shark’: The hero paddleboarder who rescued Coogee attack victim
Bartender Tom Vesper was sitting on the rainbow steps at Coogee, about to go for a swim, when the shark alarm went off.

“I saw blood in the water and then heaps of people creating privacy around her,” he said.

Vesper said the woman was swimming laps across the length of the beach, in water that was perhaps 10 metres deep.

Randwick Mayor Dylan Parker, who arrived at the beach just after the incident, said the woman had been “in pretty bad shape”.

“There are lots of very shaken-up people, but we are so thankful for the heroic efforts of that individual and council lifeguards in providing that immediate first aid and CPR,” Parker said.

A jet-ski patrols off Coogee Beach after the shark attack.

Coogee local Cooper Smeaton arrived at the beach to a confronting and chaotic scene. He described swimmers and beachgoers scrambling as the shark alarm blared, and the victim lay bleeding on the sand, looking “scared and traumatised”.

A woman named Maiara, who declined to provide a surname, described a tranquil morning at the beach as being disturbed by chaos, blood and sirens.

“I was just looking at the ocean, I saw a lot of blood, and a lady asking for help. It was a little bit traumatising,” Maiara said.

Another witness, Oakley Lamb, said he saw splashing in the water, and blood.

“It just turned into havoc,” he said.

The incident at Coogee follows a series of shark attacks in NSW last summer.

A 12-year-old boy, Nico Antic, died after being bitten by a bull shark at Nielsen Park in Vaucluse. There were also three other suspected bull shark attacks on NSW beaches, resulting in two hospitalisations and a narrow escape for an 11-year-old boy whose surfboard was bitten.

Experts attributed the January attacks to heavy rains. Chris Pepin-Neff, a shark bite policy researcher at the University of Sydney, said then that the public should be warned when it is unsafe to swim at beaches after 20 millimetres of rain because of increased faecal matter and pollution from estuaries.

Related Article
North Steyne was among a number of Sydney beaches closed after shark sightings and incidents in January.

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If a summer of sharks restores our respect for the ocean, that’s no bad thing
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Malcolm Knox
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“Baitfish are attracted to faecal matter, and sharks are attracted to baitfish.”

Surf Life Saving NSW chief executive Steve Pearce said it was the fourth serious shark attack since September 2025.

Pearce said that while the volunteer Surf Life Saving patrol season ended in April, additional drone surveillance has been organised for Bondi-Bronte on Saturday and Sunday, with further flights in the area to be assessed. Drones were flying in 14 locations for the rest of the month, he said.

Randwick and Waverley councils closed all their beaches.

Like many Sydney beaches, Coogee has shark nets in summer. The nets were removed at the end of March.

No shark nets, no swimming safety!  The Greens play politics with human lives.

Green have blood on their hands.  Vote Greens?  No bloody way!

Our Local Experience and Knowledge:

This author, Steven Ridd, was a Coogee local between 1993 and 2000, so 8 years, and well familiar with both Coogee the suburb and particularly with its beach with its comparatively shallow surf bay itself.

Knowing the shark nets were out there beyond the breakers, throughout those eight years, one swam Coogee Beach around 6:30am up and down from the club house and back every day before work, plus at weekends.  This fitness regime included a 2km walk from home each way and then after a 1-hour gym session at the old rusty version of Coogee SLSC, before it go the fancy revamp.  One was rather fit.

Steven had previously gained my Surf Bronze Medallion at Bondi back in 1987.  I voluntarily patrolled beaches at Bondi, Fairhaven (Vic), and Clovelly over a ten year period.  He then joined Coogee SLSC in 1998 and that’s when he started his daily  early morning exercise regime including the 1km sea swim about 20m offshore from the Coogee Surf Club up towards Giles Baths and back.

It was never a problem or fear because the shark net was out there protecting Thomsons Bay (part of Coogee Bay).

 

Drones are nice to complement the shark spotting

 

Active surveillance does not replace the passive security of shark nets – jet skis, helicopters, drones with cameras, patrollers watching the sea from the patrol beach.

Yet whilst the ignorant Greens Party frothed at the bit over their concerns about shark nets, the NSW Government under Premier Chris Minns was well aware that Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) had banned the use of drone cameras at Coogee Beach.

So the Minns NSW Labor Government removed the shark nets while aware that their were no drones allowed to serveil Coogee Beach for possible sharks that traditionally frequent that coastline to prey for food.  So this left uninformed swimmers off Coggee Beach at the mercy of shark attacks.  The Minns Government is culpable of gross negligence.

 

Yet, fact check, the drone legal altitude limit is just 400 feet AGL, whilst the airliners landing at Sydney Airport have a minimum altitude of 5000 feet AGL over Coogee Beach, so the unlicensed bureaucrats claim there could be a collision? Seriously?

What about the Surf helicopters at 400+ feet AGL?  CASA are arse-covering idiots.  Legal minimum vertical separation between all aircraft is 1000-2000 feet, not 4600 feet.  So go figure.  And by the way, helicopters mustering cattle up in northern Australia’s outback come a hell of a lot closer than 1000 feet vertical to fellow heli-musterers.  Like it’s whites of the eyes stuff.

This author holds a licenced Commercial Helicopter Pilot (with Low Level Endorsement) and a private fixed-wing pilot licence.

The Excellent Safety Record of Shark Nets

 

Since shark nets were installed in Sydney in 1937, there have been zero fatalities from shark attack off any Sydney beach.  The only fatal shark attack at a netted beach in New South Wales (NSW) during this entire 89 year period occurred in Newcastle, not Sydney, in 1951.

 

In fact, in 1922 the Randwick Council experimented with a “shark-proof fence” net at Coogee Beach following a fatal shark attack, but it was destroyed by severe weather before its official opening.

https://www.randwick.nsw.gov.au/facilities-and-recreation/beaches-and-coast/shark-management

 

Shark net meshing was first installed off Sydney beaches

 

1922: Randwick Council experimented with a “shark-proof fence” net at Coogee Beach following a fatal shark attack, but it was destroyed by severe weather before its official opening.November 1929: Coogee Beach successfully opened a formalised, enclosed shark net area to the public, which stood until the infrastructure was destroyed by heavy seas in 1934.October 1937: The NSW Government officially deployed the first widespread offshore mesh nets at 18 popular Sydney beaches spanning from Palm Beach to Cronulla. This system laid the groundwork for the modern NSW Sharksmart Program.

 

 

in 1935  repeated shark attacks off Sydney beaches.about 88 years ago (pre-WWII) by the NSW Government to protect swimmers from a record of ongoing history of shark attacks along  the NSW coastlinewhich

Now, by “Sydney” we mean what the NSW Government terms as ‘Greater Sydney’.  Now that’s the following huge chunk of NSW from Macquarie Street north out to Newcastle and beyond, south out to Nowra and Goulburn, and west out to Bathurst and Mudgee.  See  map below.  The green parts haven’t become red..yet.

Since 1st January 2015, the NSW Government got really too big for its boots and had its urban department for drinking water (and sewerage) take over the State of New South Wales to become WaterNSW.  See proposed map of Greaterer Sydney below.

By 2021 (under NSW Premier ​Gladys Berejiklian) the WaterNSW bureaucrats to boot got a new flash skyscraper dedicated all to themselves at Parramatta {city}.

 

 

Not bad for what used to be the mild mannered Sydney metropolitan ‘Board of Water Supply and Sewerage’ until 1995 (under Premier Bob Carr) when it got a a name change to ‘Sydney Water’.   That’s mass immigration for you.

 

NSW Minns Labour Government Culpably Negligent

 

and has prompted calls for stronger shark mitigation strategies across NSW.

‘Calls for stronger shark mitigation strategies’
The incident underscored the need for stronger protections for beachgoers across the state, Central Coast local councillor Jared Wright said.

Wright:

“Coogee Beach does not have an active SLSNSW drone patrol or shark listening station,” he said in a statement.  I have always been of the view that these protection measures need to be rolled out at as many beaches as possible, as quickly as possible.”

Sharks are closer than we think. Here are the telltale signs they’re nearby
Drones were being used at 14 locations statewide on Saturday but not at Coogee, SLNSW said.

Additional drone surveillance has been organised for Bondi and Bronte beaches for Saturday and Sunday, with further flights in the area to be assessed.

 

In April, Surf Life Saving NSW announced shark bite trauma kits would be installed at every surf club across the state following a wave of attacks.

How about shark nets?  They’ve worked perfectly along the NSW coastline patrolled beaches for 89 years since 1937.

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References and Further Reading:

[1]   ‘Woman fighting for her life after shark attack at popular Sydney beach‘,  2026-06-13, by AAP, ^https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/woman-attacked-by-shark-at-coogee-beach/75lijsbsh

[2]  ‘‘It just turned into havoc’: Woman in critical condition after shark attack at Coogee Beach‘, June 13, 2026 by Julie Power, Jessica McSweeney, Kate Aubusson and Rachel Rasker, ^https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/woman-bitten-by-shark-at-coogee-beach-20260613-p606hu.html

[3]   ‘Shark nets across NSW removed a month earlier than usual‘, Sunrise (TV magazine programme), 2026-04-01, 7News,

“Shark nets have been removed from New South Wales beaches one month earlier than usual, just before the Easter long weekend. The decision follows a summer that recorded the highest number of shark attacks in January for the past decade. Alternative mitigation strategies include acoustic receivers that track bull sharks through buoys at beaches like Vaucluse and Balmoral, providing data on shark seasonality and activity patterns, particularly during weather events and murky water conditions.”

[4]

[5]

[6]  (Greens Propaganda):  ‘Nets Out Now‘, 2025-06-12, The Greens website, ^https://greens.org.au/news/media-release/nets-out-now-0

[7]   https://www.sharksmart.nsw.gov.au/shark-nets

 

[8]  ‘Key Results of the NSW Shark Management Strategy‘, 2015, a $16 million report by the Department of Primary Industries (DPI), within the NSW Government (but acted upon?), ^https://www.sharksmart.nsw.gov.au/technology-trials-and-research