These five most pathetic statements only dug Don Burke deeper into public disgust

DON BURKE made so many pathetic statements in his trainwreck interview they were difficult to keep up with, but these five stand out as the ones most likely to make things worse, writes Wendy Tuohy.

Screen Grabs of Don Burke being interviewed on A Current Affair by Tracy Grimshaw. Picture: ACA/ Channel 9.

DON Burke followed the rules of crisis management 1:01 last night by granting an interview with Channel 9 to discuss the many disgusting sexual harassment and misconduct allegations against him.

Usually, this indicates a willingness to be transparent and engenders trust.

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All Burke achieved was to dig himself deeper into the swamp of public disgust — and it was his own, pathetic deflections that put him there.

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Clearly, the most despicable ploy to explain some of the behaviour to which he confessed (he denied all of the multitude of sexual claims made by women and in some cases supported by men) was to put it down to self-diagnosed Aspergers syndrome.

In one sentence about not having been medically diagnosed, but having “worked it out” as the reason he could not read people, Burke smeared an entire community.

He harmed the community by conflating allegations of hideous sexual misconduct with the common condition.

Don Burke during the A Current Affair interview with Tracy Grimshaw. Picture: ACA/ Channel 9.

As a result, people on the spectrum, especially kids, have to live with the implication delivered in one of the most watched TV interviews of the year that they are potentially prone to the kind of “grubby” behaviour (to quote a former Channel Nine CEO) of which Burke stands accused.

That was plain cruel and the backlash has been swift and deserved.

But as if bringing shame on the autism community, as a form of self-defence, was not offensive enough, Burke also suggested he could not answer the allegations of gross sexual harassment made against him by three women who put their names to their claims because they were mentally “fragile”.

This is a thinly-veiled way to suggesting someone is unstable, even mad, and shouldn’t be trusted as a reliable witness. Discrediting the accuser in cases of sexual harassment or assault is one of the oldest tricks in the book, and thankfully it was called out for what it was by viewers.

Host and celebrity gardener Don Burke during filming for TV show 'Burke's Backyard' in Sydney.

Well done to Tracy Grimshaw for pushing Burke with the question: “You think everybody saying these things are fragile, this comes from their fragility?”

To suggest you cannot answer someone’s strongly-put allegation because it would harm their fragile state is ridiculous, yet Burke tried this more than once.

Thirdly, his claims that social media was to blame for his predicament — of being called out by three named women, two former network CEOs and even crew members whose observations Grimshaw put to him last night — were laughable.

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As were his suggestion that stories get bigger in the telling.

The claims did not come from social media, they came from named people who have staked their reputations and risked further stress and trauma by going public.

Fourth, asking “who remembers what happens 30 years ago” totally invalidates the suffering of people who have experienced real trauma in the past. Plenty of people remember in detail what happened to them 30 years ago. Just ask the hundreds who gave testimonies to the Royal Commission into clergy abuse.

Wendy Dent encountered Don Burke while working as a children's entertainer. Picture: ABC News

The impact of historical painful events is very often ongoing pain — of the type you don’t just forget or blank out.

Lastly, to suggest he was the victim of a “witch hunt” because of the Harvey Weinstein scandal was simple garbage.

No matter how powerful a figure you are or were, the beautiful thing about everyday folks is that presented with evidence they can see right through the status to what lies beneath.

Chat with Wendy Tuohy on Facebook here or Twitter @wtuohy.