Euphoria As People Power Triumphs
The Age
Saturday June 3, 2006
"WE BEAT the bastards!" Cooma local Frank Rodwell, who worked for the hydro-electric scheme for 36 years, shouts down the phone. He expresses the extraordinary depth of feeling locals have for the Snowy. "Down here at the Ex-Service's Club, if you didn't stand up for the national anthem, a fellow might look at you sideways. If you told him you were knocking off his missus he might get a bit annoyed. But if you criticised the Snowy he'd knock you arse over head."
The Mayor of the Snowy River Shire, Richard Wallace, was equally jubilant. "I reckon it's a watershed in Australian politics," he said from the Buckley's Crossing Hotel in Dalgety, on the banks of the Snowy River near Jindabyne. The pub erupts with cheers as Mr Wallace flashes on the television toasting the news that the Government had bowed to pressure and scrapped the sale of the hydro-electric scheme. In Orbost in Victoria, members of the Snowy River Alliance, which fought the sale, were also insisting the backdown was a "people power" victory. The elated independent MP for Gippsland East, Craig Ingram, said governments never really understood the issue. "It's not just the Snowy Hydro, it's the Snowy River as well, and it's very symbolic," he said. "This had the potential to become much bigger than the environmental flows campaign, simply because people people felt betrayed by the Government."Mr Rodwell started working on the Snowy with a pick and shovel in 1955, progressed to operating earth-moving equipment and then became a special Commonwealth police officer in the Snowy Authority's internal force.He was "angry as all hell" when he heard about the sale. "I thought: 'It is fortunate the Turks own Anzac Cove; Australia would have a housing development on it by now'." Snowy workers worked through solid rock and appalling weather "when steel and stone would freeze onto bare skin" to deliver the 25-year project within budget and on time."Not only did we win but, in doing so, built a masterpiece recognised world-wide as one of the seven engineering wonders of the modern world. Would the Egyptians sell the Pyramids or the Greeks the Acropolis?"Mr Rodwell's emotion is echoed everywhere in Cooma, whose Centennial Park features an avenue of flags to commemorate the 33 nationalities who built the hydro-electric scheme.When asked if anyone supported the privatisation in Cooma, Frederick Allen, a former civil engineer who worked on the Snowy from 1965 to 1984, boomed: "Do you want to get run out of town?" "I haven't struck anyone in Australia who supports the sale," said Roger Norton, the quietly spoken Mayor of Cooma-Monaro Shire Council who campaigned tirelessly to stop the float. "This is about more than money," he said. "One hundred and twenty-one died, 100,000 people worked on the scheme from 33 countries, people in Jindabyne and Adaminaby gave up their homes and land because it was a project of national significance."Gail Eastaway, editor of the bi-weekly Cooma-Monaro Express, said the Snowy sale had been the biggest local issue since she started at the paper in 1973. Since local poet and former mechanical engineer Noel Carter wrote the first outraged letter about the Snowy float in January, the Express has been inundated with angry missives. Part of the Snowy "League of Nations" was Charlie Salvestro, who celebrated his 16th birthday at the Snowy camp in 1954 after his family had left a "Europe in ruins". "There were Polish people and German people working together and they hated each other's guts in Europe. People who came and worked on the Snowy left all the war and politics and that garbage behind." Mr Salvestro worried about the future if the Snowy's waters and power stations ended up in private hands. "In 20 to 30 years' time the water is going to be like gold." Now he is relieved. "It shows this is a free country and the bloke on the street, if they get together, they can make the Government change its mind."
© 2006 The Age
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