I should have stayed at post – Nixon

I should have stayed at post – Nixon

01 August 2011

published by www.heraldsun.com.au


Australia — VICTORIA’S former police chief commissioner Christine Nixon says if she could change things she would have stayed at her post during the February 7, 2009 Black Saturday bushfires.

Ms Nixon has been under constant criticism for her decision to leave the coordination room during the fatal fire to have dinner.

She told the ABC’s Q and A program that she has apologised for her decision to people in the bushfire community.

“I have said a number of times I would do things very differently if I could and I would go back and would have stayed in that coordination room,” Ms Nixon said.

“But I had in place a range of people whom I believed were doing a good job.

“I have apologised to the people involved in the bushfire community for any harm but very few of them blame me.”

Ms Nixon has come under renewed fire since the publication last week of her biography “Fair Cop” which Police Association secretary Greg Davies described as a “continuing litany of excuses for personal failings”.

She said there were experts who told the royal commission into the bushfires that she should have been kept out of the way and let the people who were doing the job get on with it.

She said there was an emergency structure dealing with 109 communities that were affected by the fires.

“People expect people in government like me, like politicians to be able to have all the answers, to be able to deal with them and be able to protect them and save them, in some cases we can’t,” she said.


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