and the majority of people in the Black Saturday Fire areas will say, Thank God for that!
Bob Cameron - (Police Minister then) - already resigned. (arrived at CFA HQ at 8pm that night from his Bendigo home).
Christine Nixon - (Police Chief then) - already resigned. (Was on duty, yet had her hair done in morning, met with her biographer in the afternoon at CFA HQ (and left others to cope) and then chose to go out to dinner that night with friends, allegedly with her mobile turned off. Whilst people were already burning to death. She was supposedly "on duty". Brumby supported her later.
John Brumby - (Premier then - spent most of that day at his home in Bendigo.) Should have been at HQ early morning to meet and liase with above, and should have called a State of Emergency, and ensured early warnings went out to all CFA control centres when accurate predictive maps were available at lunchtime that day, which they did NOT! He came down late in the day to organise (as he said) the schedule for the next day's mop up activites. A little late methinks.
Brumby was never elected. Never faced the people. He took the baton over when Bracks and his deputy walked out without notice one Friday night. (Not a murmur from the Press, ever, about that!)
Motto in this - in the worst national natural disaster in Australia's history - be on the spot and actually LEAD! Ensure others are doing their job! Others apart from the above in major leadership roles did NOT do their jobs either, and have also resigned. People including babies and children had already been trapped and burnt to death BEFORE any CFA warning was put up on the Country Fire Authority website at 5pm that day. The carnage was unbelievable. Dozens burnt to death in their cars. The friends who went out later and found them are still suffering severe mental illnesses in some cases.
All is not well in these areas. Broken marriages, youth hopelessness, unemployment, mental illness, others cannot work because of injuries sustained that day, etc.
Above all, Brumby got too arrogant, and took voters for granted, as did his Ministers, especially Rob Hulls, who has politicised the Legal profession in Victoria. Same thing is happening now in Canberra with arrogant Ministers and a more arrogant Prime Minister. But Gillard will never resign. And so we have three years of disorder and misery ahead federally.
