Twenty years after 88 Australians were killed in the Bali Bombings, the brutal attack is still taking its toll.

October 12 marks two decades since multiple blasts ripped through the Sari Club and Paddy’s Irish Bar in the Kuta nightclub precinct killing 202 in total.

Survivor Phil Britten was celebrating a grand final win with teammates from Perth’s Kingsley Football Club.

Seven of his companions died and the former club captain, now 42, suffered burns to 60 per cent of his body.

“There’s never closure when something like this happens to you or your family,” he told AAP.

“People think 20 years on and everything’s sorted but we have lost, just this year, one of our survivors from the Kingsley footy club to suicide and that was a reflection of things he couldn’t break out of from 20 years ago.”

Just last month, the shadow cast by the bombing deepened when Indonesian authorities revealed one of the men convicted over the attack would be released after serving half of his 20-year sentence for assembling the bombs.

Umar Patek, whose real name is Hisyam bin Ali Zein, is getting an early release for good behaviour as part of Indonesia’s Independence Day celebrations.

“It’s appalling and it’s terrible timing and the Indonesian government should have been a bit more sensitive around the 20th anniversary,” Mr Britten said.

“I just can’t get my head around it, how someone can murder so many people and still have half of his sentence reduced.”

Indonesian television aired footage of Patek saying he wanted to start a family and his wife describing him as a “romantic husband” who was “patient and loving”.

“We’ve got 202 victims in the Bali bombing who don’t get a second chance,” Mr Britten said.

The Australian government later lodged an official complaint over the footage saying it was “deeply hurtful” to the victims.

The news about Patek came after dreams to set up a commemorative peace park on the site of the former Sari Club in time for the 20th anniversary were dashed.

“As one of the survivors and one of the people actively involved in trying to establish the peace park it’s obviously upsetting and disturbing,” Mr Britten said.

The Perth-based Bali Peace Park Association’s plan for the contemplative garden had long been riven by tensions with the land owner over price.

The owner, Indonesian businessman Sukamto Tji, and his representatives had vacillated for years, at one point demanding the farcical sum of $20 million.

“It was not worth pursuing and paying an exorbitant fee. A lot of people just want to move on,” Mr Britten, who was a peace park association board member, said.

After the association ended negotiations with the owner, the federal government pulled back $4.5 million in purchase funds first pledged in 2019.

The government had supported attempts to buy the land before the peace park association closed last December, a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson told AAP.

“The sale did not eventuate and the association has since terminated its interest in acquiring the land and no longer requires Australian government funds,” they said.

“The Australian government carefully considered an alternative concept subsequently put forward for part of the site, and determined that it was not viable and did not have broad support among those directly  impacted by the bombings.”

In 2019, the offer was made for two lots on the 1500sq m site.

Initially, the owner had agreed to sell the front block where the Sari Club had stood, but then reneged. After reconsidering, he accepted the $4.5 million conditional on an additional $9 million in “compensation” for loss of income over the years.

The peace park association refused and the deal lapsed. 

In late 2021, the landowner dropped the compensation fee but increased the price to $15 million for both lots. Alternatively, he offered 560 square metres for $4.5 million. It was a no-win situation.

“We gave up,” said Keith Pearce, the former treasurer of the peace park association. 

“We notified the government that we were no longer in the business of buying the Sari Club site.”

It’s understood the owner now plans to build a hotel on the land. 

The collapse of the plans for the peace park dismayed survivors and family and friends of those killed.

NSW father Barry Wallace made the journey from Byron Bay to Bali each October, until the coronavirus pandemic halted overseas travel in 2020.

This year he will revisit the bombing site – now a makeshift carpark – to honour his precious daughter, Jodi, who died on her 30th birthday.

“I am extremely disappointed the park is not going ahead, though it has become a political football,” he told AAP.

“I would think the Indonesian and Australian governments would be proud to be involved in a peace park.

“I’m very close to my daughter there but the music from the surrounding nightclubs plays at a thousand decibels.”

Despite the passage of time, his grief has not subsided.

“But your thoughts aren’t dominated by how they died. You think more of the happy times,” he adds.

Nine members of Kathy Salvatori’s family will also attend this year’s anniversary in Bali.

Killed in the attack, 38-year-old Kathy left behind her husband, former Test rugby league player Craig, and two daughters, Olivia and Eliza, then aged nine and six.

Like all of her relatives, Kathy’s mother, Sydneysider Barbara Hackett, is upset the park hasn’t come to fruition.

“I thought it was going to be a beautiful thing. It was somewhere people could think about their loved ones without the hustle and bustle. I was full of hope that the park would be ready.”

Another survivor of the bombings, NSW woman Hanabeth Luke, 42, also hoped for a place of peace and contemplation.

“It’s profoundly disappointing that the site will not be used to remember the horrific event that happened there and the people who died,” the married mother of two says.

“I was always very keen to support a peace park being built, a quiet garden where people can sit and remember those people they loved and lost.”

Across the road from the former Sari Club site, in a busy intersection, lies a ground zero monument listing the names of the 202 who died. It’s often filled with grinning tourists posing for photos.

“It is showy and open; it’s not introspective, peaceful and calming,” Ms Luke said.

The bombing survivors and families of those killed are still trying to process the trauma and get on with their lives.

A life member of the Kingsley club, Mr Pearce is now treasurer of the Bali Memorial Association which was set up in January to honour the seven members who were killed.

His son Duane was part of the team that travelled to Bali and survived. But, like everyone, he struggles with trauma.

Mr Pearce says there is survivor guilt.

“It’s very difficult, when my boy survived. These boys were virtually in a war situation with no training.”

Ms Luke became known as the ‘Angel of Bali’ after a photo of her helping a horrifically burnt man out of the Sari Club inferno was splashed across the world. 

The man, Tom Singer, later died in hospital. Her boyfriend, Marc Gajardo, was killed instantly.

“Years later, I remembered how the photographer took Tom’s weight off me and helped. It was a powerful picture.”

It took years for Ms Luke to move on. She marked the 10th anniversary in 2012 by speaking at a commemoration in Bali and also released her book, Shock Waves: Finding Peace after the Bali Bomb. 

Writing the book was cathartic, she said.

“I was able to go back and touch my grief and address (it) but also understand what it gave me.

“When you have a near-death experience, it holds life up in your face and shows you how precious it is. 

“I was just determined that since I had survived, I would not waste that opportunity.”

And she hasn’t. The Southern Cross University lecturer and a keen surfer from Evans Head this year ran as an independent in the northern NSW federal seat of Page. 

Her impetus was climate action after the electorate was deluged by flooding earlier this year and she found herself in a tinny rescuing people from their roofs. 

Though unsuccessful, she says: “I do think that (Bali) experience gave me the courage to step into things that scared me.”

Mr Britten, a married father of three, credits his wife, Rebecca, with helping him face his demons on his road to recovery.

Depressed and in excruciating pain, there were tough years. Once, he loathed his scars but now he wears them as a badge of honour.

“The memories, the nightmares haven’t faded but we’ve learnt to cope with them,” he said.

On the 10th anniversary of the Bali bombings, Mr Brittain published his book, Undefeated. He has also established martial arts centres and is a motivational speaker.

“That would never have happened if not for Bali. I speak about my journey after that night,” he said.

“So, I remind myself how lucky I am every single day but the 20th anniversary is a significant marker and it blows my mind to think it’s been that long.”

The memorial garden at the Australian Consulate-General in Bali will be open to the public on October 12. The government is yet to disclose information about further commemorative ceremonies.

Lifeline 13 11 14

beyondblue 1300 22 4636

By Deborah Cassrels in Sydney

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