TV Station Refuses to Pay for Photographer Who Risked His Life in Bondi Beach Shooting

A photographer who risked his life during the deadly Bondi Beach shooting in Australia has found that a major national news service is refusing to pay for his images, claiming fair use.

Banjo McLachlan happened to be at Bondi Beach in Sydney on December 14, 2025, for another job when he saw two gunmen pull up in a car, jump out, and open fire at people celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.

“I back-pedaled and ducked down behind a bus stop and got my camera out and managed to get some pictures,” a shaken McLachlan told Daily Mail Australia a few months ago. “It was just chaos. People were screaming.”

Despite witnessing people being shot, McLachlan bravely went into work mode and got photos of the shooters — even having the presence of mind to capture video as well. 15 people died, including a 10-year-old girl.

McLachlan works with Matrix Picture Agency, which distributes his photos. Within minutes, the photos were on major news websites around the world, and the next day were splashed on newspaper front pages. McLachlan adds that he passed the photo-editing duties to the agency and has barely looked at the images since the atrocity.

‘Fair Use’

McLachlan’s photos not only helped the police clearly identify the suspects, but they also informed the public about the tragic events that unfolded that day. His photos were used far and wide. Matrix and the Daily Mail together billed the various news outlets that used McLachlan’s photos, which the photographer gets a cut of. But according to The Australian, not everyone is coughing up.

“The invoice has been sent to all the international outlets, to everyone who took it [McLachlan’s photos], and people are paying up,” says The Australian’s media diary editor Steve Jackson. “Nine News on the other hand, said, ‘no, no, that’s fair use’.”

Jackson was speaking to Claire Harvey on the podcast The Front. Harvey notes that, “Here in Australia, the copyright law is very clear; in fact, if you use anything, unless it’s for the purposes of critique or analysis, you have to pay.”

Jackson and Harvey called Nine News’s decision to not pay for McLachlan’s photos “theft.” But according to the pair, the national news service has a reputation for taking photos without paying and then claiming fair use.

“It’s a whole rewriting of commercial agreement and honor system,” says Jackson. “It beggars belief it can get to a stage where you’ve got the biggest media company in the country going, ‘We can just take whatever we like, and we’re not going to pay’.”

PetaPixel has reached out to Nine News. A representative of Banjo McLachlan said the photographer is unable to comment.