Ok, so I see you are reading this very differently to me, and appreciate your alternate point of view. I just do not believe it says what you think it says. I personally see no reason to give the NSW police the benefit of doubt, particularly when they are using obfuscating language, and have not enlarged further with any media outlets. (Not even to mention they do not have a great track record of truth with the media.) That being said, I believe they are right to call out arson as a major contributing factor to bushfire, but using those figures, and using that as an explanation for the current fires, I believe, crosses the line into misinformation. And I believe this was their intent.
That aside, and for the record, as I saw it and was arguing, there were two issues with the widespread posting of the report.
1. The use of this report and others, without context, by MSM as an explanation in and of itself as the cause of bushfires - or at least smoke-screening to avoid talking about other causes. This misinformation, even at its best (ie similar to the way in which yours was delivered), still relies on half truths delivered without context to create a misleading narrative. These narratives in the media are being created and propelled for the express purpose to drown out substantive calls for action on climate change. You have not argued this point so I take it you at least agree with this.
2. The report itself is misinforming. ie. it is, through vagary, suggesting these out of control bushfires in Nov-Dec were caused by arsonists, and through specificity, suggesting that these numbers were significant (if they even refer to these fires).
They are not. Australia has lower rates than most of the world in bushfire arson. There were over a hundred separate major bushfires in that period in NSW. Estimates from a previous study from 2001-2006 show that Australia on average has around 60,000 bushfires every year. Most burn themselves out reasonably quickly, or with the help of one of the rural fire services. You can no more point to arson as the cause of these particular bushfires as you could to throwing a snowball to start an avalanche. It is the literal straw breaking the camels back. In a warming world, every unusually hot dry season is a bit worse than the last. To stop bushfires there is only one thing that makes a makes a difference - water content. Not arson, not undergrowth, not fuel load.
Here is a great series of images from NASA, again via the Guardian, to explain how these fires spread, and how quickly. You can see the change in directions of the fires due the winds. Entire regions lit up or burnt out in a day. Its fucking terrifying.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2019/nov/21/how-au...