This post is really a sort of post facto amusing aside to Ray’s excellent piece yesterday and anyone who watches it would have to be rather horrified that this woman ever held a position of authority in Victoria. Frankly I have never seen such delusional thinking and convoluted self justification for ineptitude and bad management in a time of crisis. Please watch the video at my link below and if at the end of it you don’t wonder just how lucky Victorians are that this woman has been sacked I will be very surprised indeed.
click for source
The really scary thing about Nixon is that now that she has been shown to be in possession of such grossly poor judgement that she abandoned her post in the worst civil crisis in living memory and now she is trying to peddle the spurious notion that what she did was nothing of consequence, that no fewer people would have died if she was not having a chat with Jo Chandler instead of being at her post. To my mind there is a big difference between being truly sorry and contrite for one’s errors and mistakes and trying to muddy the waters with pathetic excuse making and blame shifting was Nixon is trying to do in interviews like this one and the book she has written Jo Chandler (according to the published extracts that I have read) Blaming the messenger in the form of a rightly critical media for her own lapses of judgement is more than just horribly offensive, as is the spurious notion that she has been treated harshly because she is an overweight woman. Heads up Christine, its not the size of your bum or the contents of your panties that people are angry about its your fatal lack of good sense when it really mattered.
Frankly I think that no one should buy the book that is to be launched and no sensible person should attend the launch either and if anyone is tempted to buy the book perhaps they should instead sent the purchase price to one of the families that lost someone on that fateful day as an act of personal contrition for even contemplating rewarding a woman like Christine Nixon (or Jo Chandler) for their part in the inept response to the disaster on that very black Saturday.
Cheers Comrades
Iain Hall's SANDPIT 
Yes, she’s clearly in denial about how inappropriate it was to knock off early on black Saturday. I find it revealing how she feels so sorry for herself when she has only herself to blame for such poor judgement.
Speaking of which, how dumb is it that Julia Gillard agreed to launch her book?
Oh I think that Gillard is showing VERY poor judgement by agreeing to launch the book however given Gillard’s track record, bad judgement is a political way of life for our first female PM.
How did Ms Nixon get that job in the first place?
That’s right. Let’s count Gillard’s mistakes:
1) going to an early election a few weeks after becoming PM
2) introducing a carbon tax she promised she never would
3) at times denying that the carbon tax is in fact a tax
4) agreeing to launch Christine Nixon’s autobiography
5) ‘East Timor’ solution
6) announcing Malaysian solution before its even been signed
7) being so politically close to the Greens
etc etc
But wait the MORE!!!!
…administration of the BER program
…. Cash for clunkers
… Puff pieces in the Women’s Weekly and on 60 minutes that flopped badly
Luzu
she was appointed by Brumby if I recall correctly but I’ll defer to Victorian readers for more detail on why she was chosen.
Things must be very crook indeed if even the ABC is unsympathetic:
Iain, despite what Craigy suggested yesterday (that this story is a storm in a teacup), it’s still in the news today and is likely to heighten next week when (and if) Gillard helps launch the self-serving and clearly inaccurate book.
And you just know how big this story has become when Alpine Opinion dedicates an entire round of footy tipping to it!:
http://alpineopinion.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/afl-round-19-2011-expert-tips/
Here’s the intro:
I think there might be a typo there Ray.
It’s “I’m a victim too” round
may need to read
It’s “I’m a victim – too round” round.
Very funny, damage, but as I am not a “fatist”, I have only referred to her own words – in the photo attached to the post on AO that had her saying, “I had to eat”. Yes, she actually said that @ the RC. Under oath.
That’s about the pinnacle of Dumbage’s comedy career.
I’m a bit with Craigy, a lot of this is a beat up of old history. It reminds me of when retired cricketers or footballers write a memoir and the press seizes on any “pot shots” they have taken against former team mates. Nixon is yesterday’s woman and she now looks very unimpressive. Like she’s trying to white wash her time in office and sell a few books. I am fairly underwhelmed by the whole “issue”.
she was appointed by Brumby if I recall correctly but I’ll defer to Victorian readers for more detail on why she was chosen.
Iain, Nixon was brought in from NSW to put a broom through Vic Police. The coppers here had a reputation of being “old school” police using out dated methods on a changing population. There was also widespread corruption, which was one of the things Nixon (or rather her deputy Overland) did successfully deal with.
All this piss and wind about Nixon is coming from those who have no real involvement in the very serious (to some) questions about what happened on Black Saturday. It actually makes me sick to think that we are arguing about this issue when so little has been done to fix the things that could save lives next time. This is not learning the lessons this is forgetting what really matters.
This will be my last comment on this, not because I am defending Nixon, I actually don’t give a hoot about her, but the focus on her here and by some in the MSM is very upsetting to those of us who wish to see what happened to us remembered accurately and deeply wish that death of those good people will not continue to be used as a political football.
It is fair enough for those here to discuss this in such a shallow way, I’ll respect my friends and bow out.
Craigy & TOI,
The one who is “beating up old history” is Nixon, by releasing her book and by going into the media (The Age & 7.30 Report) to sell that book. Think about it – if she hadn’t done that no one would be talking about it. It’s a bit too close to events for her to do that and it’s only natural that people will take her on over what seems like callous indifference and opportunism on her part.
Nixon is clearly ‘shooting the messenger’ (News Ltd) in her attempt to justify herself and get publicity. And, quite frankly, you are both ‘shooting the messenger’ here too by suggesting that we should not comment on her and, instead, just ignore it.
Craigy, I understand it opens old wounds that are far from healed for you yet. But what we’re saying here is not about the fires. It’s not about the tragic loss of life or how we can prevent that in future either. It’s about the way a person, once trusted in one of the highest positions of authority & responsibility in this State (Victoria), has come out just over two years after those events to basically present a highly commercialised and skewed, denialist version of her role. To sell a book.
We mean no offence and, to borrow Chandler’s title …. it’s “Fair Cop”.
Craigy
With all due respect to your friends who died – the people to blame won’t ever except that it was their fault. EVER.
Here is an example of how they won’t.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2010/02/19/strathewen-resident-responds-to-bolts-bushfire-rant/
Bowing out might be a tad late.
Nixon is clearly ‘shooting the messenger’ (News Ltd) in her attempt to justify herself and get publicity.
Well that implies that the “messenger” is benign and did not have an agenda to discredit her – which from my perspective it did. But she is entitled to write a book and have her say on the matter. Is she doing it for the publicity? Maybe but who knows for sure, apart from her.
And, quite frankly, you are both ‘shooting the messenger’ here too by suggesting that we should not comment on her and, instead, just ignore it.
And where have I or anyone said we should “ignore it”? Frankly I just think there are bigger issues to worry about. Still do. Famine in Somalia, debt crisis in the US, rogue gun men in Norway… and lately we have been sticking it to some retired copper for going out to dinner, and some uknown journo for helping her write a book?
Thanks for providing that link to Craigy’s excellent piece @ PP last year, damage. I hadn’t seen it before but I agree 100% (and then some) with what he wrote, especially this bit:
Well said, Craigy.
TOI, maybe you didn’t say in so many words that we should “ignore it” but I certainly gained the impression that both you & Craigy would rather that Iain & I hadn’t written the 2 posts about Nixon’s book (Sorry that I forgot to add the “opinion warning” to my comment).
Isn’t the real problem here that Nixon wrote a book in the first place and then tried to give a version of events that most people disagree with? I’ve seen comments elsewhere that ‘poor Christine’ was ‘damned if she did mention the RC and damned if she didn’t’. To some extent I understand that, especially as the book was already under way prior to Black Saturday and, therefore, it was about her career and not the one specific event at the end. However, the fact is that those events were so gianormous that they clearly overshadowed (or at least provided a real ‘highlight’ of) her career. So, yes, if she was going to finish the book and release it then it goes without saying that she had to cover it.
That being the case, maybe she’d have been better off ditching the whole idea and sparing herself further humiliation. And sparing us all the angst of revisiting those events.
Like it or not, TOI, it was Nixon who made this into a legitimate topic for debate.
As you say Ray she is entitled to write a book and pretty much write whatever she pleases. The tabloids had a few months of writing some pretty critical stuff about her (some of it warranted, some of it just pointed and nasty) and she is entitled to a right of reply.
Others can dissect her book and work out whether she’s got a point or is in denial / delusional / lying. But I won’t be. She is yesterday’s woman.
If I was her I would be taking my six figure pension and disappearing into history. But she obviously wants to sling a few barbs before she goes. Will it do her any good? Probably not. It all reminds me a bit of The Latham Diaries.
Yep, I agree with all that, TOI. (with no “opinion warning” required)
I will buy the book of Christine, and put it on the top shelf , between Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf, and Bolt’s book, Still Not Sorry. What a trilogy .
Best RR comment yet. GOLD.
AH WELL! “Fair Cop” if it is good enough for Chopper Reed to write a book, a convicted criminal, but then he was not responsible for the bush fires in Victoria. Only Joking.
At least Chopper Read didn’t try to deny he was what he was.