Press Council finds in favour of Herald Sun over ‘Q&A sob story star’ expose
The Press Council has ruled that News Corp’s Herald Sun did not breach its the Standards of Practice in an article which “exposed” Q&A audience participant Duncan Storrar as a “thug”.
The article titled “ABC HERO A VILLAIN: Q&A sob story star exposed as a thug as public donate $60,000” was published on the front page of the paper on May 13 last year, after having first appeared online with a similar headline the day before.
The story resulted from Storrar’s appearance on ABC’s Q&A Budget special program on May 9 where he commented to panelists: “I’ve got a disability and a low education – that means I’ve spent my whole life working off a minimum wage. You’re gonna lift the tax-free threshold for rich people. 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…. Low-income earners lose more money, because every penny we pay in tax, is, just, that’s money we don’t have to spend at the bottom end. People who make $80,000 a year, don’t know who they are, well, they don’t even notice it, love. We notice that sort of stuff, eh?”
He subsequently found himself at the centre of a social media storm with numerous viewers and commentators pegging him as the face of Australia’s Budget crisis and financial inequality – with some going so far as to call him a “national hero”.
