Everyone is carefully avoiding saying what ethnic group the 'l@zer bandits' are most likely to belong to, but when you consider what part of Sydney they're operating from, it's a pretty fair bet they'll come from a (shall we say) predictable group.
One of the very senior captains at my company predicted that concerted, synchronised attacks like this might be launched in half a dozen countries on one particular day, with an aim of causing chaos to the whole air transport system. (I saw a copy of his submission to the company three or four yeas ago.) He suggested that the company should be proactive and prepare for such a threat and consider spending a small amount of money then by providing goggles in each aircraft so that ops could contine immediately after any such attack with some degree of safety for the pilots.
The company thought 600 dollars per aircraft for goggles was too expensive and said (correctly) that the goggles would be only marginally useful because they would only offer protection for a particular frequency.
I would have thought that goggles that protected against commercially available l@zers would have been money well spent, as the easiest way for the crazies to get their hands on such weapons is over the counter.
Just like box cutters....