Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows Prime Minister Harold Holt opening the Murray 1 project, part of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme, in July 1967. Holt is shown arriving in a motorcade at the Murray 1 Power Station, touring the facility and pulling a lever to activate a generator. The large crowd that attended the opening is also shown. The clip opens with a pan across a line of flags hanging in the power station. The flags represent all the nationalities of the workers who contributed to the Scheme. The clip also shows the pipelines that divert water from the Snowy and Geehi Rivers east of the Snowy Mountains to the Murray River in the west.

Educational value points

• The Snowy Mountains Scheme was Australia’s most important post-War construction project. Not only was it a huge technological feat, but it marked Australia’s emergence from nearly two decades of economic depression and war. Designed not only to supply power to a growing and increasingly energy-hungry population, the Scheme also allowed the expansion of industry and the rural sector. It cost $820 million to complete.

• The Scheme, completed between 1949 and 1974, diverts water from the Snowy Mountains through seven power stations. The diverted water turns hydro-electric turbines that generate electricity for New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and Victoria. The water is then released into the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers for irrigation of the Murray–Darling Basin.

• The Murray 1 Power Station, illustrated here, is the second-largest power station in the Scheme. It has ten 95-megawatt turbine generators that generate electricity from water diverted to the Geehi Reservoir through the Murray 1 Pressure Tunnel. Each turbine generates enough electricity to power 95,000 houses.

• The three pressure pipelines shown in the clip divert water to the power station. They are 1,560 m in length and up to 4.19 m in diameter and can carry 243,500 L of water per second to all the turbines to generate electricity. Water released from Murray 1 Power Station flows through Murray 2 Reservoir before it is used to generate electricity again through the Murray 2 Power Station. The water is then diverted into the Murray River for irrigation.

• As indicated, men of many different nationalities worked on the Scheme. A post-Second World War skills shortage in Australia forced the Snowy Mountain Hydro-electric Authority (SMA) to recruit large numbers of workers from overseas. A labour force of more than 100,000 representing 32 nationalities worked on the Scheme over a 25-year period. Seventy per cent of these workers were either immigrants or temporary residents from countries such as the USA or Norway. This multicultural labour force is celebrated for working and living harmoniously alongside each other.

• Prime Minister Harold Holt, an enthusiastic advocate of the Snowy Mountains Scheme, is shown officially opening the Murray 1 project. As Minister for Immigration between 1949 and 1956 in the Menzies government, he had overseen the huge international recruitment program required for the Scheme.

• Snowy Hydro – Snowy 69 was made to promote the Scheme. The SMA had initiated a concerted public relations campaign, including films such as this one, to explain the complexities of the Scheme and promote its benefits in response to some media opposition to the Scheme and public concern about its huge cost. The documentary is narrated by James Dibble, an authoritative voice and familiar newsreader for ABC television from 1956 to 1983.

• The clip highlights the architectural features of a power station from the time. These include austere geometric shapes, open interiors, and extensive use of glass, steel and reinforced concrete. In keeping with the Government’s representation of the Scheme as a symbol of progress in Australia, a special committee was formed by the SMA to ensure that a sense of progress and modernity was reflected in the Scheme’s architecture.