Richard Flanagan tells 'Why I wrote The Unknown Terrorist'. Having published an article "suggesting there was a curiously close relationship between the Tasmanian government and some large corporations, in particular, with one large company, Gunns", he was pilloried in the press, by the government, and:

It was the way the media seemed more than happy to run with the government spin with almost no questioning of it, and the way most people believed most of what they were hearing and reading. People, I realised, thought I was who they were being told I was. For many, the lies of others were to become their truth about me.

He then ties this in with the way the Australian government treated the American administration. I think his own debacle traumatised him, sensitising him to the media in general. Personally, the leap he now makes seems forced.

"I don’t like Australia much anymore," he says. "I am exhausted by having to listen to shock jocks and read opinion columnists."

Nobody's forcing him. I never read opinion columns, and I never listen to the radio, except for the classical music station 2MBS FM.

Thanks to Currajah for the heads-up.