Blogger DP Mason writes:

The cyclone-hammered people of
Innisfail have been mightily slagged by Sydney columnist Miranda
Devine, safely tucked up in her warm PJs as she delivers her scathing,
bitter verdict in yesterday’s Sun Herald on the mothers with children in tow who spent two days or more standing in the rain in the Innsifail town square last week.

“We
in Sydney are very sorry for the people in northern Queensland who have
lost their homes to Cyclone Larry,” she wrote. “But, much as we will
miss their avocados and bananas on our supermarket shelves, we can live
without their whingeing.”

I don’t know who told Miranda she
could speak for the people of Sydney, but she’s dead wrong. People in
Sydney who actually bothered to watch the news saw only a handful of
people complain about their extreme misfortune.

Miranda quotes
the widely seen footage of local Shiralee Hazel, who aired her
frustrations at a TV camera, as being indicative of the rest of the
townsfolk. “Effing do something now,” Shiralee said. “That is my
message for them. Get off their fat a*ses and do something.”

Fair
call? Sure. It’s hard to imagine any of us could stand in queues for
two days, in the rain, holding traumatised, hungry, wet, bored children
and not demand everything move faster.

Australians watched the
people of Innisfail coping extremely well, under the circumstances, and
felt proud that they complained as little as they did. We were deeply
moved by their shocking stories of survival and loss, we were
heartbroken by the terrible plight faced by so many mums and their
terrified kids, and we laughed, too, at the good-hearted farmers and
local blokes who could still crack a joke when their lives were at
their lowest.

Anyway, since when has it been un-Australian to have a good bloody whinge when the going gets beyond hard?

You can read more reaction to Miranda Devine’s sledging of the people of Innisfail on the Cyclone Larry: The Aftermath blog.