The Era of Phoney Outrage

By David Woodbury

  

Residents of Batemans Bay shelter from bushfires along the beach.

Apparently there is a growing trend among the media and some sections of the political spectrum to indulge in a sense of outrage over peripheral issues, more often than not with the purpose to denigrate a person. Outrage, aimed at a particular person has become the chosen weapon of distraction and destruction. Typical of that was the interview on Monday 6 January 2020 by Channel Nines’ Today show host Karl Stefanovic with Rural Fire Services Commissioner, Shane Fitsimmons. The main issue centred on the fact that Prime Minister Scott Morrison mobilised the ADF to assist with the catastrophic fire facing Australia without informing the Rural Fire Services Commissioner. Whether or not he was obliged to, is a minor issue in light of the dire situation facing Australia.

A message this week from Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama reminded me of the assistance that was available during the crisis. In 2016 Fiji was devastated by Cyclone Winston and Australia responded by sending HMAS Canberra. This week the prime minister wrote: “Fiji will never forget the arrival of the HMAS Canberra following the devastation”.

Just to set the scene HMAS Canberra and HMAS Adelaide are sister ships of the Canberra Class, the largest warships ever purchased by Australia. Part of the rationale for their purchase is that they would serve in times of natural disaster, both ships being equipped with helicopters, a fully equipped hospital including operating theatres, the capacity to carry multiple types of vehicles including earthmoving equipment, and the capacity to land many of these assets, including troops, on a beach due to their landing crafts.

HMAS Adelaide.

On New Year’s Day 2020 as much of the southern coast of NSW burned with great ferocity and evacuees gathered at McKenzies Beach, south of Batemans Bay, were showered with burning embers, I do know HMAS Adelaide was berthed at Garden Island in Sydney. I would have thought, Mr Stefanovic, the more important question would have been: “Why haven’t these assets been employed?” It seems incredible that such a valuable relief vessel should remain at its berth while coastal towns and villages on NSW southern coast were ringed by fire.

It is my understanding that the ADF is only ever mobilised following a request from the state premier keeping safe the federal/state constitutional protocols. Some incisive questioning by Karl Stefanovic of Rural Fire Services Commissioner may have shed some light on the absence of a request for such a vital asset as HMAS Adelaide.  

It wasn’t until the weekend, that the prime minister made the unprecedented and courageous decision to set aside the federal/state constitutional protocols, and call in the ADF, resulting in the mobilising of HMAS Adelaide, which soon made its welcome appearance on the fire-ravaged shores of the devastated community at Eden. The absence of significant ADF forces around New Year is perhaps the point Stefanovic should have been pursuing. However, in pursuing the phoney outrage against the prime minister his journalistic competence must be called into question.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

One would assume that having made such an unprecedented decision the PM would have informed the state premiers which then poses the question; who should have informed those impacted by the decision, such as the rural fire commissioner. Protocol and chain of command would suggest that the information should have been relayed by the state premier and not the PM. Perhaps another fact Stefanovic failed to pursue

It would appear that NSW had not made any substantial requests for the ADF save those that were already embedded with the Rural Fire Service. The question remains: Why were no significant assets made available around New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day? There are only two possible scenarios here:

·         The NSW government failed to ask the federal government for the much needed resources

OR

·         The NSW government asked the federal government for the much-needed resources and was refused.

The latter seems implausible given that within a few days the prime minister made the unprecedented and courageous decision to set aside the federal/state constitutional protocols and call in the ADF, including HMAS Adelaide

In his obsession with pinning some failure on the PM Karl Stefanovic’s was, in soccer parlance, playing the man and not the ball. Twice he badgers the fire commissioner until he gets the answer he wants. It may well be that because of this he missed some of the more vital issues. We are constantly being bombarded by this style of phoney outrage over peripheral issues which in many ways borders on blatant deceit of the general public. It is time some in the media took an integrity pill.