No surprise. Other refs have come out and said the same since retiring.
The whole refereeing set up needs binning and starting from scratch with new refs.
Dunno if they're taught to do this or it's just a thing they probably talk about in their circles, but there needs to be a different culture around the lot.
What's ridiculous is, even though they see it as 'evening out', it could massively sway the game. If you even it out at a certain point it might have a big psychological effect. Or if you blow for a pen that shouldn't have been, not doing that could have meant the other team runs up the other end and scores a fair goal, which now never happens, and they did nothing wrong other than be 'victim' to a poor refereeing decision that actually went their way. It's madness.