As she did for the Victoria Police, Christine Nixon does for the bushfire recovery

Surprise, surprise. The bushfire reconstruction authority headed by the woman who was chosen to lead the Victoria Police not because of her record as a successful police commander, but because she was a woman and had a business degree, is more concerned with process than results. Our leaders failed to lead during Black Saturday. Now there’s a failure to truly lead in the reconstruction, too - and from some of the same people: THE reconstruction of Marysville is being blocked by bureaucratic delays and an obsession with process, according to four philanthropists who donated millions of dollars in goods and services - as well as time and money - to help rebuild the town. Mining magnate Andrew ‘’Twiggy’’ Forrest, Linfox managing director Andrew Fox, and property entrepreneur Max Beck have slammed authorities for acting too slowly to construct commercial projects to kick-start the economy in the bushfire-ravaged town, 15 months after Black Saturday. Actor Russell Crowe’s Melbourne representative has also expressed frustration. Between them the men have raised $1.3 million, which is available for a business project, but so far they have nowhere to spend it, they say. Mr Fox said the ‘’whole structure’’ of the reconstruction process had failed the people of Marysville.... ‘’There should be a leader to say, ‘This has got to happen’. They needed a Peter Cosgrove from day one...’’ Max Beck, founder of the construction company Becton, said he had been helping the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority, but withdrew five months ago because he ‘’was disappointed with the speed of the way things were happening’’… While Mr Forrest expressed faith in the current reconstruction authority chief executive, Ben Hubbard, he said the approach to rebuilding Marysville so far had been ‘’stifled in bureaucracy’’… ‘’We really need the government leaders to show action … by actually achieving rather than slavish adherence to process,’’ he said… The philanthropists who spoke to The Sunday Age did not specifically blame (reconstruction authority chairman Christine) Nixon for the perceived slow progress, but their criticism will put further strain on her after her recent grilling before the Bushfires Royal Commission over her actions on Black Saturday. Andrew Bolt "Process" is one of the banes of modern life inflicted upon us, along with management speak, by useless drones with business or marketing degrees. As we can see here, all too often it becomes virtually an end in itself, not a means to an end.

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