By now everybody in Australia knows who Duncan Storrar is. Until a week ago he was just an Australian battler who had faced more challenges in his life than most … until he asked a simple question on the ABC’s QandA program. A question that could have been asked by one of a million people, but it was he who had the guts to ask it, and it threw him headlong into the national spotlight.
He has been lauded as a hero of millions for doing so, but sadly, he has also been punished mercilessly. Mercilessly by a media giant who considers that it is themselves who decide how the Australian public will think and decide on what opinions they will hold. The LNP narrative was supposed to be “average” Australians get tax cuts, “small” business get tax cuts and that it’s Mr and Ms Average who hold multiple negatively geared properties. And if you don’t fit into how the Libs want “average” perceived, then you are a leaner, a no-hoper, a sponge on the public purse. Mr Storrar gave us all a reminder of what “average” in Australia is likely to be – a struggler who has to scrape to find enough money to take his daughters to the pictures, not someone who has a negatively geared property tucked away for their 1 year old baby.
And then something even worse happened (as far as the Murdoch media was concerned), the public rallied in support of Mr Storrar. Rip him up and tear him down as he has destroyed the narrative.
And the media attacks on Duncan have been appalling. We’ve all seen it. How could you not have?
And we learn that this punishment comes at a price.
We have been given permission to publish this plea from a family friend.
“I am friends with the Storrar family, they’re currently being hounded by media, and outsiders picking apart half truths and misconstruing versions of the truth.
Yes Duncan has had a hard life, some of which are his own choices, some due to mental illness, and some due to circumstances that I won’t go into, however his poor elderly mother is at her wits end and extremely distressed, and Duncan is now under suicide watch. His poor mum can’t bare to lose another child – she’s already buried one son.
This week, Duncan has been pushed to the brink of suicide. The character assassination needs to stop.
It’s scaring me how much this is effecting the Storrar Family. And I hate seeing Duncan’s message to the politicians being lost by this witch hunt.
Thank you again for trying to bring back the focus to the issues that Duncan raised, rather than crucifying his character like so many others are doing”.
Are we surprised at this? We don’t think so.
But we have been – admittedly – surprised at the ferociousness of the attacks on Duncan. They set out to destroy him and have come close to succeeding.
Is everybody happy now?
