Our leaders deserted us on Black Saturday (Australia's worst natural disaster - utter debacle)

Herald Sun ^ | 30th April 2010 | Andrew Bolt

[naturalman1975]

HAS Victoria so run out of true leaders? Are we really now led by buck-passers, media tarts and paper-shufflers?

The bushfires royal commission this week could only add to our despair.

And only add, too, to the possibility former police commissioner Christine Nixon could face being charged with perjury.

Black Saturday was a day that should have seen our leaders lead. It was the crisis for which true leaders are born.

For which some secretly dream.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man, and all that. No war, no Churchill.

Instead, the hour cameth, and the leaders went. To hairdressers and dinner. To their private business. To their farm. To their Bendigo home.

And meanwhile the state burned and 173 people died.

This week it was the turn of Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe, a respected officer, to have his reputation as a leader shredded, and even his truthfulness questioned - or at least put in need of defending.

First, the context.

The royal commission has already told us the head of the Country Fire Authority, Russell Rees, failed to lead on that dreadful day last February.

With the state in flames, he "did not become actively involved in operational issues, even though the disastrous consequences of the fires began to emerge".

Rees last week resigned.

We've also learned from the royal commission that Nixon, who not only headed the police but was meant under law to co-ordinate the emergency response, instead went to her hairdresser for 90 minutes, discussed her memoirs with her biographer for almost an hour, dined out with friends, and for three hours - at the height of the fires - neither made nor received a single call or SMS.

[brushcop]

I thought I was reading about the USA. This malaise/corruption must be in all developed countries.

[Gay State Conservative]

My understanding is that bushfires have been a part of Australians’ lives since The Rocks.Apart from having many men and many pieces of equipment properly positioned during fire season what else can be done? Of course,having only the most rudimentary knowledge of the issue (if that) I could be way off base.

[Not now, Not ever!]

Sounds like Tony Villar a few years back, during mayday in L. A.

He had buggged out to Mehico, while his kinfolk rioted in the city.

[bronxville]

Sorry about the fires and all the lives that were taken. May they all RIP.

If you have a poor leader then the rank and file follow. If the leader is corrupt it’s even worse because it’s felt within the whole corporation/administration - this woman and her cohorts won’t be held accountable because they’re from the same party. That’s why I admire and respect Sarah Palin. She took on both parties and cleaned house...which is why she’s hated by the current corrupt administration, press, and the RINO’s. The only leaders I admired came fro the Eastern European bloc especially the Polish President who fought them all and he’s now diseased. RIP

[naturalman1975]

To a great extent you are right. There's a Royal Commission looking into these fires and it will report on any thing that went wrong, but it's possible that even if all these people had been where they were meant to be, it wouldn't have made much difference.

There is some concern about whether the warnings issued were detailed enough, and whether the advice given to people as to what they needed to do was correct, but those are separate to these issues.

But the bottom line is, whether or not it would have made any difference in this case, on a day which had been previously identified as the most dangerous bushfire day in the state's history (this did not come out of nowhere - the government knew and had publically stated that the risk was extreme) the Chief of the Country Fire Authority, and the Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police - the state's most senior fireman and most senior police officer were not actively involved.

The Chief of the CFA might reasonably claim, in my view, that he had delegated control to highly experienced deputies who knew the areas involved better than he did, and he was available if they needed him. But the Chief Commissioner of Police, went to the hairdressers, and then spent hours talking to her biographer, and worst of all, just after she was told that evening that people were definitely dying, she went out to dinner with friends at a pub. And her Deputy - the person she claims she delegated her command authority to - was not present when she left her post.

I have no real problems with the actions of the Premier or the Emergency Services Minister (despite my strong political disagreements with them as socialists). The Premier is a volunteer firefighter with the CFA and he, like most such people, stood ready to defend his own property and community if called on. He was also available to make any decisions he might need to (such as declaring a state of emergency). And the Emergency Services Minister was at home but contactable and made it clear he was available to come into command headquarters if the professionals - the fire fighters - felt their political leader was needed, and as soon as they called, he got there as fast as was humanly possible.