RatsoreA,
You have i believe said several times that a clearance was forthcoming for MDX, ("in a few minutes" I believe you said) and I think in one case you said that he refused it because of the level offered.
My information (however faulty) is that Sydney had canned such a clearance onward after Willy as their area was not VMC, and that no clearance was ever offered at anytime, nor was one likely to be?.
Here we have a NVMC aircraft in known bad weather out over tiger country. The controller knew that the Sydney CTA was non VMC and therefore YSBK probably wasn't so hot either. I am not saying that it was the controller's responsibility to offer a helping hand but he had lots of information that the pilot was in a bind. If you can't understand that, that's fine, but it is clear to me.
Love him or hate him, Dick Smith is in my opinion one of GA's best friends.