as Oxxa just said, our dramatic increase in shorts on the shorts chart you've shown was when we entered the ASX300/200 on the same day, nothing to do with anyone being privy to any inside information
Lets have a look at PLS and see how right the shorters got it over the last 12 months.......note the large spike in September, by your theory these shorters may have been privy to inside info, no they werent they all got burnt immediately, it went from 1.5% short to under .5% short in a day and the price went from $2.19 to $2.52, then being suckers for punishment they went short again and got burnt again immediately lol. Can almost guarantee most shorters got burnt on PLS in the last 12 months, and those that havent covered in the last two days would be sweating it out right now.
The graphs below are a fine example of why I dont care about how many we have short right now, look at the SP chart, why would anyone care except the shorters themselves, or longs waiting for a short squeeze