Those with genuine responsibility will always be hounded by the petty with little skill or understanding.
Hasbeen: Just how were the "city folk" responsible in Black Saturday?
The premier was in the media the day before giving warnings...all country folk should have been aware (my family certainly were!). True, privatised power lines that were not maintained properly caused some of it...but mostly it was just a *really* bad fire day.
I too find bureaucracy annoying, but it is as much a symptom of the demographic pile-up as it is of systematic stuff-ups. There are just too many "seniour" people in all organisations...which means you have to start a new branch/division to get anything done. This is true of private and public sectors.
As the article says: Sh^% sometimes happens...but it isn't always the fault of those we dislike!

Stop press, dkit, you may be right. So may Dan, it would appear. As we all believed, the engineers hung onto water that should have been let go, even if they had only followed the manual. The story we all heard is that no one would make a decision, & the decision makers were off for the weekend. It appears it may be true, but even worse.

Just heard on a news highlight, while driving, it is now reported that someone who's opinion/approval was wanted before staff were game to take action was off on holidays. I know I have broken a holiday, the first in 4 years, simply because an engine in a boat broke down. Would a public service type do the same, particularly when thousands were in line to suffer.

It will be interesting to learn if this senior, unnamed person was told, & did not want to bother, or were the staff loath to interrupt such a gods holiday.

If the latter the bureaucracy needs a serious shake up. If the former, people need to be looking for a new line of work, many of them.

The plot thickens.

Oz mate, I really don't dislike anyone, unless they give me a direct reason. Unfortunately petty little bureaucrats manage to do this sometimes.

In the Victorian effort, the reports I read told of local volunteer brigade captains giving information & advice, but being ignored by the senior staff at headquarters. Apparently much time was lost in some areas, where more immediate action, & advice would have saved at least some.

If this is wrong, get up the ABC, their program could not avoid giving the same suggestion, even though they tried.

Not to many years ago some safety consultants convinced Governments and Big companies that all accidents were preventable. Trying to talk to these people was about as useless as talking to an gw alarmist that their arguements were totally flawed. Many humans are dumb enough to believe they ultimately control things. They forget that they are very very limited in what they can control. Failure to acknowledege human limitations leads to all sorts of stupid dogmas (like we control the weather).

Good article. The modern mindset seems to have this ridiculous idea that a life devoid of harm is achievable. But, as the author succinctly puts it, stuff happens (had to edit the profanity). Is it in any way rational to blame bureaucrats for excess rain? A simple solution to avoiding floods would be not to live in flood prone areas.