Well the political hierarchy is something like: - Campbell Newman, Lord Mayor of Brisbane - Anna Bligh, Premier of Queensland - Julia Gillard, Prime Minister o

Well the political hierarchy is something like: - Campbell Newman, Lord Mayor of Brisbane - Anna Bligh, Premier of Queensland - Julia Gillard, Prime Minister of Australia I think it's pretty unlikely that you could pin the blame on any of them and they all responded well once the crisis happened. The operating rules for the Wivenhoe dam (which is supposed to mitigate this kind of thing) decide how much water can be released and when, and that is set at the state level (i.e. by Queensland state government), so probably Anna Bligh is the easiest target in that respect. I saw an official describe the dam operating rules as "conservative", but I'm not sure in which direction they are conservative - in the direction of minimising releases or minimising risk of overflow.