While I don't often watch much television, and tend to rely on the internet for information and news, I did watch a lot of the coverage of the situation.

As an ex-Sydneysider and knowing at least one of the hostages, I would like to say that I am grateful for the continuous coverage. I would like to salute much of the media for the restraint they showed in co-operating with the police, in most instances, and embargoing the name of the shooter, and other details that they had.

One of the stations actually had a camera set up inside parts of the cafe and an area for a YouTube set up that had been scheduled.

Much of the media was based on the fact that as it was a lone madman and much of the information was embargoed, the watching the situation unfold seemed the only solution at the time for the newsrooms.

I would like to thank the police who did their best in these circumstances and members of the public who co-operated with investigations and evacuations. I think the deputy commissioner of police, who was clearly the woman on the ground for the incident, did her best to keep us informed and yet to protect the hostages against well-meaning but wrong-headed assumptions.

The anti-Muslim rave in popular media seems deeply misguided, as it often is when people go into religious arguments relying on un-thought out fallback arguments.

Further, I believe we have lessons to learn from this. Those lessons include: Perhaps it is time for another gun amnesty? It appears that once more they are all too easily obtained for mad and criminal acts. Further, we need to provide more support in the health system for people with mental illness . Plus, further education for the general population about inclusive approaches to refugees and others new to your community.

We need to question the comments that were made by many, paraphrased by many, that we are a generous and peaceful people.

Have Australians changed? It seems that we have some of the highest records of violence against women in the developed nations, and an appalling record with indigenous peoples we do not give generously with philanthropy of any kind .

Perhaps this lone gunman with a grudge is a big question mark for us rather than a full stop.

Perhaps we could use this as a way to make ourselves a better people as a community.

This should be a wake-up call for us to re-evaluate our own ability to add to the debate in defining a democracy as an open and inclusive strategy for getting Australians to be, once more, a generous and peaceful people.