'They never saw it coming': Police union boss speaks out about gun attack

A police union boss says the unexpected and "horrendous attack" on Queensland police officers has left them "gutted" and while the slain officers will be remembered it offered little comfort to their grieving families.

Constable Matthew Arnold, 26, Constable Rachel McCrow, 29, and an innocent bystander Alan Dare all lost their lives at a property at Wieambilla, 300km west of Brisbane, after brothers Nathaniel and Gareth Train opened fire on them.

"Matthew and Rachel … will never get to have another birthday, they will never get to have a family, to celebrate Christmas again …Their lives were cut way too short," Queensland Police Union president Ian Leavers said.

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Arnold and McCrow were killed almost instantly when they were ambushed by the Train brothers after the police officers arrived at the property alongside their colleagues Constable Randall Kirk and Constable Keely Brough, who both managed to escape.

Leavers told A Current Affair host Leila McKinnion that the two police officers who survived "against all odds" were recovering, but they "are doing it really tough".

"The male police officer, Randal, he's still in hospital," Leavers said.

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"Keely has been released, but this is only the start of the journey. It's gonna be a long road for both of them."

Leavers said the surviving officers would live with what happened forever after "seeing their colleagues executed" while they "were fighting for their own lives".

He said it was a miracle they weren't murdered as well.

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The 16 officers who went in to retrieve McCrow and Arnold were unable to administer first aid in time because they "were being fired at continuously".

That later confrontation with police left the brothers and the wife of Gareth Train dead.

"The heroic acts were just unbelievable and that just shows what police do, day in and day out, they're just ordinary people and it's just a tragedy," Leavers said.

The union boss said police had intelligence and had done a risk assessment, but the tragedy couldn't have been expected.

He said any officer investigating a missing person report would have done the same thing as the four attacked at Wieambilla.

"This was a business as usual job that they were actually doing and it was actually routine," Leavers said.

"It's not like they were attending to a violent incident or a domestic violence incident where there were threats. It was unknown to them.

"They never saw it coming."