The WT did appear rather ill-prepared which I put down to several possible rationales/scenarios.
* This was a deliberate strategy from the higher ups at HQ to cause the brothers at Australia Branch to appear feckless to the extreme. Which wasn't difficult because even brothers with positions at a relatively large branch are feckless to the extreme. Ignorant and out of the GB loop, cannon fodder at best.
* Once fecklessness has been established, and it was...oh it was. The GB have their heads on a plate to serve up to the media or the gov or whoever else is demanding for a few heads to roll. They can say the Aus Branch f...ed up, they didn't know what they were doing, but we will "fire" all the incompetents and "clean house" in the spirit of cooperation.
* Someone, somewhere in the Head Honcho dep at HQ would have reseached the RC and deemed it to be a toothless tiger, so therefore nothing to worry about.
*They have already inplemented some clever jiggery-pokery with changing the name of the TMS and dropping the bookstudy in private homes and will continue to rearrange the wording/phrasing of key passages in future literature and correspondence and present this as evidence of change - if asked to provide it.