FULL: A Little Hope Goes a Long Way

The Christian O’Connell Show

GOLD and iHeart Australia

Comedy, Music Interviews, Music, Comedy Interviews

4.7 • 823 Ratings

🗓️ 26 December 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Christian and the team share stories of hope, resilience, and the power of community. We talk about the extraordinary GoFundMe for Ahmed, a hero who saved lives in Bondi, and the overwhelming support that followed.

There are personal stories of kindness and generosity, including Christian’s very funny mistake of accidentally leaving the Airbnb and his wife’s response, plus chats about cricket movies, favourite songs for Sydney, and a $500 voucher giveaway to Harvey Norman.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	IHart Podcasts. You can hear more Gold 104.3 podcast, playlist and listen live on the free IHart app.
0:09.3	Got anything good?
0:11.1	Hey, this is the Christian O'Connell Show podcast.
0:18.4	Now, over the last couple of days, as we get to know you and introduce the show to you guys,
0:23.6	we've been beginning the show with Stories of Hope because I think we really need them.
0:27.5	There's something nourishing about them in such a tough and trying wheat this week.
0:31.8	Patsy, what is Ahmed's GoFundMe campaign up to now?
0:36.0	He said, the guy is a millionaire.
0:54.8	It's such a beautiful story out of such pain and sadness on Sunday night. We didn't even, this time last week, we didn't know Ahmed. Yeah. He's in the community doing good. He's just one of those people. Now we do know who he is. And Patsy, what's it up to now? This incredible GoFundMe page, which is raising money for Ahmed from all over the world.
1:07.5	It's incredible, Christian. It's over $2.5 million now. So $2,557,954. It's gone up by about 200K, which is just phenomenal.
1:12.0	And beautiful messages. I get the feeling he still goes back to work. He's still going to have a couple more surgeries.
1:26.8	And I get the feeling someone like that is someone that wants to be part of a community. And he will be going back to that tobacconist. Yeah. I'm not sharing he's going to be a Monday to Saturday shift anymore. It might be, you know, sporadic hours. Yeah, it might be a bit. I meant stuff traveling around the world again.
1:29.6	But what a lovely thing this has been.
1:45.2	Oh, it's just so heartwarming. William Markham has written, Ahmed, I don't know how much a coffee would cost at Bondi, but the next ten are on me, mate. And if you're ever in the Northern Territory, find me, and I'll take you to the best fishing spots in the world.
1:47.4	You're a fair Dinkham legend.
1:51.7	He is, and Beth Schmutter has also written, Ahmed, you saved many lives.
1:54.2	Thank you for the heroic actions.
2:00.4	I also want to acknowledge your parents for raising such a special person, sending healing thoughts to you and happiness to your family.
2:03.3	Yeah, his mum and dad spoke so well about their son, and his mum just said at one point,
2:08.8	this is who our son is.
2:10.4	Incredible thing. Rio, there was some special scenes down at Bondi yesterday.
2:13.7	Yeah, down at the Bondi Memorial, there's this beautiful vigil full of a mountain,
	...

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