An Australian police officer has been hailed as a hero by the country’s prime minister, after she confronted and shot dead a man who fatally stabbed six people at a Sydney shopping centre.

“There is no doubt that she saved lives,” PM Anthony Albanese said, calling Saturday’s attack “a horrific act of violence”.

Police described how the unnamed officer bravely tracked the attacker through the mall, challenged him and shot him dead after he raised his knife towards her.

“A man walked into Westfield at Bondi Junction… as he moved through the centre he engaged with about nine people,” Anthony Cooke, assistant commissioner of New South Wales Police, said.

“It is clear that during that engagement he caused harm to those people… stabbing them with a weapon he was carrying.

“Very clearly a range of reports were made on the incident, police attended promptly – a single unit officer, inspector of police, was nearby, attended, and went into the centre directed by a range of people.

“She confronted the offender who had moved, by this stage, to level five.

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