Watching the reaction of the neo-conservative press to Duncan Storrar’s Q & A appearance has been every bit as enlightening as the gormless response of Kelly O’Dwyer and Innes Willox on the night
The neo-cons response was to attack Storrar’s integrity as a person and to try and paint him as a deadbeat deserving of no sympathy. They were aided and abetted by Duncan’s estranged son Aztec who painted his father as a pretty abject figure. The Australian – one of the king’s of tax avoidance – screamed that Storrar paid no net tax and expended two front pages going after this battler.
Yesterday’s Herald-Sun continued the attack with an article by David Penbathy full of indignant righteousness that lauded the son over the father and attributed statements to Storrar that he never made. At no stage in the Q & A interview did Storrar ever say that he thinks hard working people/taxpayers are rip off merchants as Penbathy suggests.
Duncan’s unpretentious request for an answer as to why the government chose to reward high income earners with a tax break rather than spend money at the bottom end where it actually makes a difference to people’s lives was not answered.
Waffle about growing the pie and small businesses being able to buy a toaster just showed how out of touch the government is with the struggle facing millions of low income earners. Fair-minded Australians know that cutting welfare while giving the well off a tax break is not the answer.
Duncan Storrar may have made bad choices, he may have been a shitty father, he may have a criminal record but his question was pertinent to the situation faced by millions of low-income earning Australians and that’s what terrifies the neo-cons.