Sorry, I should have elaborated a little more on my previous post. You're correct in that a TAF is worked out within a 5nm radius from the ARP. Sure. But implying that they gave us enough information to plan for holding or alternates just by stating "Thunderstorms in the area" on the area forecast just isn't right. No professional pilot on the planet is going to read that and consequently carry holding fuel or plan for alternates when the TAF has no operational requirement on it.
You read the ARFOR, consider the weather you're going to face enroute and keep it all in mind, but it's the TAF is what determines how much fuel you're going to carry. You'll obviously have some sort of margin fuel, but you could have come into that place last night perfectly legally with nothing but burn and reserves. Would you only carry the bare minimum? Probably not. In a perfect world you'd take as much fuel as possible everywhere you went. But that's not how commercial operations work!
That weather last night was a line of hell running from Ulladulla up to Newcastle and the worst of it was concentrated over YSSY. If it was a little storm that came and went, fair enough I guess, but this thing was huge. How they missed it in the forecast is crazy and it's not cool. There's no good excuse in my opinion.