The art of managing disasters

THE legend of Nero fiddling as Rome burned is often used as a metaphor to describe incompetent officials failing in times of crisis.

Gough Whitlam in Darwin after Cyclone Tracy struck; the former PM cut short his holiday in Europe and flew to the NT, but returned to Greece a few days later.

THE legend of Nero fiddling as Rome burned is often used as a metaphor to describe incompetent officials failing in times of crisis.

In the US, former BP chief executive Tony "I want my life back" Hayward got the Nero treatment following the recent Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. So too did US emergency services head Michael Brown in the chaotic 2005 aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Not even the epic George W. Bush tribute, "you're doing a heck of a job, Brownie" could save him.

Closer to home, former Victorian police chief Christine Nixon has been lambasted for "fiddling" at the pub as people perished in Black Saturday bushfires, while Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari is today enduring worldwide scorn for preferring the comforts of his family's Normandy chateau and a five-star London hotel when his country is being ravaged by floods.

As outrage has swelled, Zadari has attempted to mitigate his Nero-like disregard for the 1600 people drowned and 12 million left homeless by pointing out the hotel in question is London's cheapest five-star digs.

None of this is particularly fair to Nero who, on one account at least, stands as an early victim of the never-let-the-facts-get-in-the-way-of-a-good-story syndrome, also known as urban myth.

According to Publius Tacitus, regarded as the most credible chronicler of the Nero period, the real story of Rome's Great Fire is quite different. Tacitus wrote that Nero was in Antium when the fire started and upon hearing of it, he immediately rushed back to Rome to organise the relief effort, which he paid for out of his own pocket.

So while Nero indulged all manner of sexual and slothful extravagance, executed his mother and butchered thousands of Christians, he did have a sense of civics. NSW Chief Justice and former Gough Whitlam press secretary Jim Spigelman would appreciate the point.

Last week Spigelman wrote to The Australian to complain about a story concerning South Australian deputy Liberal leader Mitch Williams. The report was about poor judgment by Williams who chose to remain in the Top End for the Darwin Cup race meeting rather than return to his electorate where a tornado had just ripped through the town of Penola.

Spigelman objected to the report because Williams's decision to make merry in the tropics rather than attend to duty was likened to Whitlam's famous refusal to break a prime ministerial holiday in Greece and return to Australia when Cyclone Tracy flattened Darwin on Christmas Day, 1974.

In his letter Spigelman insisted that Whitlam did in fact break his trip, did return to Australia and did visit Darwin. Spigelman says he knows it to be true because he had recommended precisely this course of action and been one of the Whitlams' travelling companions on the journey home.

"As Gough may have put it, the alleged event is not so much famous as false," the Chief Justice writes.

A check of The Australian's archives establishes Spigelman's version of events to be accurate, but it doesn't explain how the myth of Whitlam's unbroken Greek holiday has become so fixed in the public mind.

Up in the Top End it is folklore that Whitlam was more interested in looking over the ruins of ancient Olympia than the rubble of Darwin and that it was deputy PM Jim Cairns who came to Darwin and captained the recovery effort.

Likewise, there are on the record several references to Whitlam immersing himself in Greek culture, seemingly oblivious to the devastation in Darwin. For example, in a 2009 article from Melbourne's The Age newspaper, associate editor Shaun Carney observes: "In 1974, Gough Whitlam was on holiday in Greece when Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin. He refused to break his vacation to return to Australia.

"Whitlam faced substantial public opprobrium for doing so, not so much because he wasn't interested in empathising with stricken fellow Australians but because it underscored the rising judgment that his government was out of control."

But Spigelman's account, backed by the newspapers of the time, is that Whitlam's travelling party, which included a big delegation from the Canberra press gallery, spent Christmas Day, 1974, in London, a welcome break from several days of high-level meetings.

According to Spigelman, a tired Whitlam went to bed early on Christmas night, just before cables began to arrive describing the carnage wrought by Tracy in Darwin.

"I put the cables under Gough's door with a note saying he had to return home," Spigelman recalls.

"He woke me at dawn on Boxing Day and said, 'yes, that's right, and you are coming with me'."

For reasons Spigelman cannot recall, it was decided the press should not be told, a move the prime minister was later to regret.

The returning party comprising Whitlam, Spigelman, a secretary and a police officer flew home on Qantas thanks to some fast footwork by Lenox Hewitt, then a Qantas board member, who was able to get seats.

Spigelman recalls the RAAF picking up the prime ministerial party in Perth. From there they travelled to Adelaide and then to Alice Springs where Spigelman stayed while Whitlam flew on to Darwin.

It was December 28, three days after Tracy had struck when Whitlam arrived in what was left of the northern capital. He had a brief tour of the devastation, held a press conference, then flew back to Alice Springs where he stayed overnight.

The next morning he flew to Sydney and on December 30 presided over a cabinet meeting at Kirribilli where it was decided to establish the Darwin reconstruction commission comprising representatives of the federal departments of housing and construction, urban and regional development, the Northern Territory and the Darwin City Council.

At the time there were media reports that Whitlam was considering both cancelling the rest of the European tour and addressing the nation on the crisis in Darwin.

But neither of these events transpired. Instead Whitlam decided to return to Europe as fast as he could.

On the front page of the January 1, 1975, edition, The Australian carried a three-paragraph brief with an Athens dateline. The headline reads: "Whitlam visits Crete museum".

"The prime minister Mr Whitlam visited the Crete Historical Museum at Iraklion yesterday," the report said. "Today he will fly to Olympia to tour ruins before visiting war graves in Athens."

Above it was a longer story with a bigger headline: "Darwin mayor critical of govt rebuilding plan".

Spigelman's guess is that over time people have come to assume that because Whitlam returned to Greece, he never actually broke his trip in the first place.

"Somehow things have got merged," says Spigelman. "It may be because he returned [to Europe] and had his holiday in Greece. Then it became a case that he never came back, he just stayed in Greece. But it's wrong to say he didn't come back, because he did. And it was an extraordinary trip."

According to researchers at the University of Sydney and the University of Hull in Britain, recollections of events are easily contaminated with misinformation.

Sydney University's Helen Paterson says the simple sharing of memories of events, even by people familiar with them, can lead to "memory distortion".

"That is, witnesses who discuss an event with a co-witness are very likely to incorporate misinformation presented by the co-witness into their own memory for the event," she says. "Once their memory has been contaminated in this way, the witness is often unable to distinguish between the accurate and inaccurate memories.

"Critically, our research has shown that co-witness discussion is an especially potent delivery mechanism for misinformation; information provided during discussions with a co-witness is more likely to be incorporated into the witness's memory than information encountered through leading questions, inaccurate media reports or other processes."

This may well explain why so many Tracy veterans in Darwin are convinced Whitlam was a no show, but there could be another more practical reason.

"We didn't know what was going on," says Darwin businessman Dwynne Delaney, who until our conversation was convinced it was Cairns, not Whitlam who ventured north after Tracy (in fact they both did).

"Then radio didn't come on for about five days so there was no news. People were just flat out fending for themselves. But I've always thought it was Jim Cairns who showed the leadership and got the ball rolling. Whitlam wasn't in the picture at all."

Whitlam had no special affection for Darwin or for territorians and that may have made it easier for him to return to Europe.

Four months prior to Tracy, when territorians voted for their first fully elected Legislative Assembly, Whitlam's alleged financial incompetence and disregard for the Northern Territory was the central issue. The result in the 19-seat Assembly was Country Liberal 18 seats and one Independent. Labor scored nil.

It wasn't long after Whitlam returned to what was dubbed his "European safari" that he started paying the penalty for not keeping the travelling press informed of his dash home. In The Australian, political correspondent Russell Schneider wrote that Whitlam's "holiday is over".

"He will continue to satisfy his penchant for sightseeing of course, including a special visit to Leningrad where he will wind up his Russian visit by inspecting museum works of art. He will then fly to Bonn to pick up the million-dollar sculpture The Birds," Schneider wrote.

"Mr Whitlam's overt interest in the Mediterranean scene may influence the more than 500,000 southern Europeans who have come to Australia since World War II. How many votes it has cost is another matter."

But that, of course, is a problem Nero didn't have to worry about.