I do have sympathy for the crew here.
This is is what I think could of happened - very short taxi from the VA terminal, so the F/O could of been distracted doing the line up checks as they were taxiing on to the runway and not properly monitoring the turn. Captain followed the first lead in lines he saw (30). They could of been running the checklist as the captain or F/O realised the error, been in the middle of a quick confused discussion about it and Canberra tower are already all over it, telling them ‘stop stop stop’ (great job tower). Incident occurred at 7PM so crew could of come off a long day. Having asked around, there was no application of take off power.
I’m not downplaying the negative outcome that could of occurred from this, but I’m giving some sympathy to the crew. I’ve made many mistakes whilst flying all of which could of had questionable outcomes had they not been picked up by the person next to me or even myself, we’re just human. I’ve even heard of captains turning the wrong way on to a runway at uncontrolled airports realising instantly their blunder taxi to the end, backtrack for the correct runway, file a report and hear nothing about it! Unfortunately in this case they ostensibly made the same mistake realised the error, never were going to take off but had ATC screaming ‘STOP STOP STOP’ which sounds very frightening over a frequency and picks up traction with media.
end!