Advertisement

The man the media tore apart is ready to take on the pollies again over poverty

It’s been three years since Duncan Storrar’s life was torn apart by Australian media and he was forced to flee his home because reporters and photographers kept showing up on his doorstep.

It had all begun with an appearance on the ABC’s Q&A program in the lead-up to the 2016 federal election, and a question he put to government ministers about boosting income for the poor.

As a result his face was splashed across the front-pages of two major newspapers with headlines that referred to him as a “villain” and a “thug”. The whole thing unfolding and reaching its frenzied climax in just a matter of days.

“It got pretty bad,” Mr Storrar told Yahoo News Australia, describing the whole event as a “car wreck” because “you might recover from it but you never forget it.”

“What the press were basically getting at, their message, was that [because] I’m poor [and have] done dysfunctional things… I don’t have a right to take part in a democratic process and ask a question of a politician.”

Those “dysfunctional things” had included substance abuse and a criminal history which, although it was more than 15 years old at the time, was splashed across the front pages of the Herald Sun and The Australian.

The media attention and scrutiny got so bad Mr Storrar had to leave his home in Geelong and “go into hiding”.

His two young children and elderly mother were deeply affected, while Mr Storrar himself was “under suicide watch”, according to one family friend who spoke out at the time.

Three years on from that Q&A incident and subsequent media backlash where his criminal rap sheet was dragged up, along with accounts from estranged family members with axes to grind, and he was thrust into the public domain in a matter of hours, he wants to go back to where it all started —he wants to go back on Q&A.

“What’s the worse they could do?” Mr Storrar told Yahoo News Australia — ‘they’ being the media outlets that turned him into a “pack circus” in 2016— “Do that to me again?”

‘Go on Q&A – What could go wrong?’

Duncan Storrar during his now infamous Q&A appearance where he asked the panel about helping out the poor. Source: ABC/Q&A
Duncan Storrar during his now infamous Q&A appearance where he asked the panel about tax breaks for the poor. Source: ABC/Q&A

The day before Mr Storrar’s infamous Q&A appearance in 2016, he had travelled to Melbourne from his home in Geelong for a private session with the Royal Commission into Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and to see his psychologist.

Mr Storrar had grown up as a ward of the state, where he had suffered the sexual abuse responsible for life-long mental health problems.

During his visit with his psychologist, he had told her his question had been selected to be read out on the following night’s screening of Q&A and she had been encouraging.

“Go on Q&A. What could go wrong?” Mr Storrar recalls her saying, with a wry but not ill-humoured laugh.

The following night, when his turn came, the camera had cut to the face of a man with dark scruffy hair, glasses and wearing a white hoodie. It was day one of the 2016 federal election campaign but the political doublespeak was already in full-swing.

Into the fray Mr Storrar had strode with a direct question about low-income workers.

"I've got a disability and a low education, that means I've spent my whole life working for minimum wage. You're going to lift the tax-free threshold for rich people?" Mr Storrar asked panel members.

"If you lift my tax-free threshold, that changes my life. That means that I get to say to my little girls, 'Daddy's not broke this weekend, we can go to the pictures'.

"Rich people don't even notice their tax-free threshold lift. Why don't I get it? Why do they get it?”

Tax cuts helps business owner buy $6000 toaster

Liberal Party panellist and then-Assistant Treasurer and Small Business Minister Kelly O’Dwyer was among those to respond but her answer fell flat with many audience members and TV viewers, particularly when she tried to use an example involving a small business owner who was able to purchase a $6,000 toaster thanks to the government’s tax cuts.

Kelly O'Dwyer on Q&A responding to Duncan Storrar's question in 2016 about tax thresholds for the poor. Source: ABC
Then-federal Liberal MP Kelly O'Dwyer responds to Duncan Storrar on the night he appeared on Q&A and asked a question which subsequently thrust him into the media spotlight. Source: ABC/Q&A

Mr Storrar responded to this, again with a life account familiar to many Australians that unlike the discussion about policy that dominated the show’s talking points, it brought a human, flesh-and-blood reality to the tax-threshold issue for those who wouldn’t benefit from it.

“To rich people, it’s a Coke and a milkshake or whatever. To me, it changes my children’s lives,” he said.

“It means my children have $7,000 more money every year to live on. Low-income earners lose more money because every penny we pay in tax, that’s money we don’t have to spend at the bottom end.

“People who make $80,000 a year, dunno who they are…well, they don’t notice it, love. We notice it.”

Fellow panellist Innes Wincox, the CEO of Australian Industry Group, drew audible jeers from audience members when he weighed in by saying: “Duncan, I’ll be harsh in my message; if you’re on the minimum wage with a family, you would not pay much tax, if any at all.”

Mr Storrar quickly fired back: “I pay tax every time I go to the supermarket. Every time I hop in my car,” and the audience erupted in applause.

Twitter lit up with support for Duncan Storrar on the night he appeared on the ABC. Source: Twitter
Twitter lit up with support for Duncan Storrar on the night he appeared on the ABC. Source: Twitter

Duncan dubbed a ‘national hero’

Social media lit up with support for Mr Storrar, and he was heralded as a “national hero” for sticking it to the political elite and giving a voice to those living below the poverty line. Before the Q&A broadcast ended that night the hashtag #IstandwithDuncan was trending on Twitter, and it continued to do so into the next day.

“Most people know people like Duncan. Very few know people with $6000 toasters,” one viewer tweeted.

Within hours of Duncan's Q&A appearance, #IstandwithDuncan was trending on Twitter and it continued to do so until the following day.
Within hours of Duncan's Q&A appearance, #IstandwithDuncan was trending on Twitter and it continued to do so until the following day.
Duncan's quickly resonated with many on social media. Source: Twitter
Duncan's quickly resonated with many on social media. Source: Twitter

Another added: “Just me, or was it good to see a fella who prob left school early make a highly educated bloke look bloody stupid?”

A tongue-in-cheek GoFundMe set up for Mr Storrar (“buy Duncan Storrar a toaster”) with the target of $6,000 had surpassed that figure within a few hours. Two days later it had exceeded $60,000.

It was clear Mr Storrar had struck a chord. Commentators on the left clamoured to dub him a “national hero” and “Aussie battler”. Overnight he became an unwilling symbol for progressives.

How the media turned on him

But just as quickly, he became a target for many conservatives and some media outlets.

Melbourne's Herald Sun's front page splash on Duncan Storrar as it appeared on Media Watch in 2016 ahead of the federal election.
Melbourne's Herald Sun and The Australian were savaged on the ABC's Media Watch for the way it treated Duncan Storrar.Source: ABC/Media Watch
The Australian front-page story on 'Q&A hero' Duncan Storrar in 2016. Source: ABC/Media Watch
The Australian ran a front-page stories about 'Q&A hero' for two consecutive days. Media Watch as well as many other journalists condemned the newspaper's treatment of Duncan Storrar. Source: ABC/Media Watch

“It completely destroyed my life what the media did,” Mr Storrar told veteran journalist Neil McMahon in a 2018 interview conducted in front of journalist students at Melbourne’s Macleay College.

“Whether it was me or someone else, it was completely unethical what they did.”

Many veteran Australian journalists agreed. Among them, was Media Watch host Paul Barry who, one week after the Q&A episode aired featuring Mr Storrar, devoted a sizeable portion of the Media Watch program to condemning the media outlets’ coverage.

“So is this what now happens in Australia to someone who sticks their head up in public and exercises their democratic rights?” Mr Barry said.

“Duncan didn't ask to be a national hero. Or a national villain. Nor did he ask for our charity.

“All he did was put his hand up and ask a question. And he was crucified.”

Mr Storrar’s treatment by the media was far-reaching in its negative impact.

‘Low-income workers afraid to speak up’

Jeremy Poxon of the Australian Unemployed Workers Union, which advocates for those struggling in the social security system, told Yahoo News Australia in the years since Mr Storrar was torn apart he had encountered dozens of low-income workers who refused to speak to media out of fear of being treated similarly.

“These are some of the most disadvantaged people in our society, who say they couldn't cope if they were shamed and targeted as horribly as Duncan was,” Mr Poxon said.

“People living in poverty have very little trust and faith in journalists and the media - after all, they've suffered through decades of hostile narratives about ‘dole bludgers’, ‘job snobs’, and the like.”

Pictured: The Australian front page on Duncan Storrar's past criminal convictions. Source: ABC/Media Watch
Three days after Duncan Storrar's Q&A appearance, The Australian ran a front-page story that detailed past criminal convictions. Source: ABC/Media Watch

Despite the “horribleness” of the ordeal, three years on, Mr Storrar readily states there had been substantial positives that eventually emerged as a silver lining on the edge of the nightmare of 2016.

“Because of what happened on Q&A, since then I’ve sort of become an accidental advocate for people living in poverty. And for state wards,” he told Yahoo News Australia.

“It’s now given me a drive; I talk about poverty — I talk about it as somebody who is actually living it today.”

‘Three years on and nothing done about poverty’

As both an advocate for Australians living in poverty and someone experiencing it himself, Mr Storrar said since his Q&A appearance, he’s watched first-hand as poverty has got worse. Yet, even at the height of a fierce federal election campaign, as an election issue it was treated “like a filthy word”.

“Poverty is at levels we haven’t seen since Gough Whitlam came to power [in 1972],” he said, citing figures from the Australian Council of Social Service’s report, Poverty in Australia 2018 which found more than three million Australians (13.2 per cent of the population) lived below the poverty line.

In Australia, the poverty line is defined as a single adult living on less than $433 a week, or $909 for a couple with two children, not including the cost of housing.

“With poverty getting as bad as it is, it’s one of the most fundamental dangers to our democracy. It’s more dangerous than terrorism,” Mr Storrar said.

Petition to get Duncan back on Q&A

It’s why he wants to go back on Q&A, and has even started a petition to achieve just that.

“Three years on we still have done nothing about poverty... The reason we’ve set up the petition is because poverty is silent,” he said.

“One of the things [poverty advocates] want to do is get people out to tell their stories. And that’s one of the reasons I’ve done the Q&A petition.

“[Q&A] is the only place in Australia where people like me have the chance to ask their politicians questions.”

Besides, he contends, he’s confident “the press” couldn’t try and tear him apart again, because it would just prove the fierce criticism against the media outlets that ran the hit pieces against him were right.

“I think, quite frankly, that the Murdoch press found out that the county doesn’t appreciate [how they behaved]. They went too far,” he said.

Besides, he added: “I don’t have people in the street throwing eggs at me. I have people coming up [and saying]: ‘Are you okay? It’s so horrible what they did to you.’”

Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

You can also follow us on Facebook, download the Yahoo News app from iTunes or Google Play and stay up to date with the latest news with Yahoo’s daily newsletter. Sign up here.

.
.