of course he means it! He could have easily done what Pignata did with Perth and said "Nah, we'd rather play at the gong than travel to NZ" instead, he is quite direct and states that we deserve one or two games at home, the fans deserve it etc.
Just like he meant it when he said "when you get me, you get me 100%"?
Even if he does mean it, it still doesn't affect anything and certainly isn't worth applause - its the bare minimum you'd expect from a reasonable human being (which, to be fair, is more than you'd expect from Rudan)