Latrobe Valley Power Keith Parsons
The Latrobe Valley’s history over the past 100 or so years can be largely tracked side by side with the rise and fall of the brown coal industry. There have been boom times as well as bust, yet while industrial diversification has increased in the last decade the area still relies heavily upon its power industry for survival. The threat of ‘green energy’ looms large over many worried residents, whose economic livelihoods are entwined with the brown coal industry’s continuing predominance in the region. Coal was discovered in the late 1800s just north of current day Morwell and in 1886 the first mining company began exploiting the now known to be vast reserves. Due to large labour strikes and the decreased reliability of coal from New South Wales, the Victorian government set up the State Electrical Commission (SEC) in 1920 to take over and pursue a state controlled power industry. Workers flocked to the valley, with migrant labour playing a critical role in filling the labour shortage. The area then enjoyed many decades of prosperity under the guidance of the SEC, including the creation of thousands of jobs through apprenticeships and the formation of company townships like Yallourn. Energy security was assured to all Victorians, with low cost power coming from completely state-owned coal mines and power stations. When global oil prices spiked worldwide as a result of the 1970s crises, the Victorian consumer saw no change to the cost of energy, despite other states’ spiralling prices. By the late 1980s many in the area began to sense a change on the horizon, with whispers of downsizing and cost-cutting in the near future. In 1994 the Kennett government disaggregated the SEC into five separate companies that were then privatised. The Latrobe Valley bore the brunt of this decision with unemployment skyrocketing to well over 11% (double the national average) with hundreds of people leaving the area. Businesses and schools also closed, alongside a crash in property prices. The Latrobe Valley has been recovering ever since... 2012 brings with it a whole new set of challenges for the power industry, with the rise of carbon pollution in the public’s mind. In addition, the Federal Government proposed the Contracts for Closure scheme, whereby higher emitting power stations were offered financial incentive to close. There is once again a strong feeling of insecurity hanging over the Valley and whilst many think previous lessons have been learned, uncertainty still remains.
1886 1886 - Great Morwell Coal Mining Company begins operation 1920 - Legislation is passed resulting in the formation of the SEC 1928 - Construction of first Yallourn Power Station completed 1939 - WWII causes a 70% increase in demand on the Victorian brown coal industry
1968 - Demolition of Yallourn township begins to make way for expansion of the neighbouring coal pit
1964 - Hazelwood Power Station commissioned
1985 - Construction of the Loy Yang Power Station is completed
1994 - Jeffrey Kennett's Liberal Government dissolves the SEC, resulting in mass unemployment
2012 - Federal Government retracts Contracts for Closure legislation
2012
Yallourn North Moe Yallourn Power Station
Morwell
Morwell (Energy Brix) Power Station
Hazelwood Power Station
Traralgon
Loy Yang Power Station
Con Savige - Dairy Farmer - Moe
K: What was your first recollection of the power industry? C: I can’t remember a lot, though I remember when they came through and put up the lines on our property, they pulled them up with a tractor. K: And did you receive any compensation for that? C: Oh probably not, no I don’t think so, they just put them up.
“I was a pastry chef although in 1951 I went down to the Yallourn power station and signed up with the SEC. I had a few friends who were bricklayers and I got on there as a lagger, which you might know is handling asbestos...”
“I live in an SEC-built house myself, terrific houses. We had the option of buying them slowly from the SEC and you know they really looked after their workers, that would never happen now after privatisation.”
Frank Rooney - SEC Lagger (Yallourn)
Steve Lovison - SEC employee
“SEC stood for Slow, Easy & Comfortable (laughs)”
“Everybody had secure work and all of that changed when Mr Jeffrey Kennett became premier in ‘94 and that was goodbye SEC, goodbye gasworks, goodbye water, goodbye everything. There was 7000 people working on construction at Loy Yang and they cut that down to 3500 pretty much straight up.”
“If that was to come in (green power) then I would like to see where they are going to get power from. I’ve been to Europe and there are that many of those wind flappers flapping and they still haven’t got enough power.”
“TRU have always been good to us, they bought us new shirts at the bowls club”
Cathy Tisdale - Office Assistant
“My father’s uncle came to Australia and then he suggested that my father come out and make some money. He made the trip in 1951 when he was only 21 and every cent he earned he sent home to his family. He planned to be here for 12 months to 3 years maximum, although he is still here!”
“It was a huge attraction for migrants, skilled or unskilled they could still find work. Dad was fortunate enough to work with ‘Aussie’ guys on the job, whereas Mum didn’t learn any English until us kids went to school and we would come home and read with her.”
Latrobe Avenue - Site of old Yallourn township - Demolished in the 1970s to make way for the open cut expansion
New housing estate - Traralgon
“I worked for the bank, we came down in here in 1983. The place was absolutely humming. We were trying to buy a house and we would be stuck in Echuca and calling the agent in Traralgon, who would tell us that he had a good property come on the market earlier in the week and it was already gone!”
“The main hotel in the middle of the town is called Ryan’s, and you would be three deep on the bar trying to get a drink after 5pm, it was just chaos.”
“Then when they started breaking up the SEC everything dropped. Land prices dropped, house prices dropped. When we came here we saw a block for $28,000 and then I reckon it was about 14 years later and you could still buy the same block in the same street for the same price”
Jim and Julia Carr - Traralgon
The Ridge - Morwell
Boyd Tabuteau - SEC Forestry Division/Farmer
“You’ve got to remember that with the SEC back then and now, that the votes are in Melbourne”
Buckley St - Morwell
Latrobe Valley Yacht Club Regatta - Hazelwood Cooling Pondage
“Even with one of the smaller power stations like Yallourn, to shut it down and power the same wattage by wind farms would mean that you would need to build 1200 of them.�
Martin Brown - Yallourn ‘W’ Power Station employee
Yallourn ‘W’ Station - Yallourn North
“I grew up in Moe, I was born at the Yallourn hospital which is now in the open cut (laughs).”
“I did an apprenticeship as an electrical fitter/armature winder at Yallourn TAFE. You can’t get better training than what we got there, it just doesn’t exist anymore. We learnt how to actually use tools, taught how to make things from scratch. These days it’s all on the job, everything is about the money.”
“The Valley took a big kick in the teeth then (privatisation) and it’s going to happen again now with the introduction of the carbon tax. You’ve got the Energy Brix (Morwell power station) that has five generators in the station and they have shut it down to one now. Which for us means I have struggled to keep the work for all the guys here. The carbon tax will have a big effect on the area. It’s not just the service industry, it’s just a massive snowball effect on all business in the Valley.”
Rob Mizzi - Owner “Genertech� (power industry contractor)
Ann Hogan - Willow Grove School Principal
“I married a man who was attached to the power industry, to the SEC. We came down to the Yallourn Power Station and I think we thought we would be here for a short period of time… although as its turned out we are here 30 years on (laughs). It was such a great place to bring up children.” “People were guaranteed a job because of those power stations although you no longer have that sense that the power station or power industry will provide them employment. I don’t think kids going through school now would have that perspective either.” “I mean clean energy is the way to the future, it is going to come through within the next decade. But what it will do to the Latrobe Valley I do worry, I worry about what it will do to the community.”
“Many thought the SEC was a lifetime role although you know I’ve seen enough in my lifetime to know that just was not the case.” “It’s part of our motivation now to make sure that this is not going to happen again because of low carbon emissions, carbon price, carbon tax, call it what you want...” “You had mass unemployment right through the Valley, although this has finally come back up after all of these years with Australia-wide unemployment at 5.2% and Latrobe Valley at 5.9 %... at the end of the SEC it was around 11%. So that’s our inspiration this time with major change on the horizon, we need to be proactive. I’m not going to say that there is not going to be some significant impact, there certainly will be.” “The coal won’t be ignored, there is huge deposits out there...decades of it. Though it’s about how can we burn this coal cleaner, that’s the future.”
Ed Vermuelen - Latrobe City Mayor
Keith Parsons +61 433 445 090 www.keithparsons.net klparsons90@gmail.com