Was it the safest and most risk adverse decision? No.
I'm not sure about that. Essendon is in a control zone and the tower can manage other traffic. Avalon - not so much. If you have a wing that is comprimised, then you want as long a runway as possible, so that would be Essendon or Avalon only. I think there is a lot in favour of choosing to go back to home base and the airport with which you are most familiar.
There has been discussion of leading edge damage, but the photos that are publicly available don't really show it. Who knows, it may have been an initial conclusion by the pilot that turned out to be not so much of an issue. The pilot would have done an assessment of its flying capability after the touch that is better than any of us can do from armchairs.
I'm still trying to figure out how the lead aircraft got leading edge damage.