you're not Australian are you? ;)
Westminster parliamentary system.
One assumes the real press conference was delayed so he could do the grandstanding.
That said, there should have been nothing said at this stage anyway until some sort of real conformation was performed.
I guess it's all about entertaining the masses who demand their ongoing live entertainment fix.
Details of the satellite images and retasking of search aircraft would surely have leaked and the Australian government would have been rightly criticised for withholding that information had it not been announced.
That said, our government is incompetent, that can't be denied.
It doesn't help there's all these theories about hijacking or the pilot going rogue. People/Media ignore the most probable theory that the plane had mechanical issues and crashed. I had calm my mother's fears on the phone couple days ago as she heard from a media source that plane was going to be used to deliver a nuclear weapon to the US mainland which is a completely absurd theory. Real incompetence is how the media spun this event out of control in the name of ratings and ad revenue.