Realisation of dam dream
A look back at significant moments in the North’s history
THOUSANDS of people in Townsville will receive a water supply that is guaranteed and pure with the opening of the Burdekin Falls Dam today, August 14, 1988.
Prime Minister Bob Hawke made a speech at the official opening of the dam in Australia’s bicentennial year; a project that was decades in the making.
“For almost a century the dream of a dam upon the Burdekin River has inspired generations of people with the promise of new prosperity for North Queensland,” Mr Hawke said.
“Today we mark the realisation of that dream the completion of the Burdekin Dam and the formal opening of a new era for the people of this state.
“In opening this dam today I pay unreserved tribute to all those who have planned and built it.”
Four years ago in 1984, the Burdekin Falls Agreement was signed by Senator Peter Walsh, the then Minister for Resources and Energy, and Sir Joh Bjelke-petersen, the then-premier of Queensland.
Less than three years later the dam wall was finished a year ahead of schedule due to the good industrial and meteorological climate that prevailed.
“Now in 1988, thanks to the recent cyclone, the dam is full and North Queensland is about to receive the benefits of this great achievement,” Mr Hawke said.
“I say great, because the dimensions of this dam beggar the imagination.”
The dam wall is 876 metres long, with a spillway of half a kilometre, rising 37 metres above the river bed, holding 1.85 million megalitres of water, inundating 22,000 hectares of land and drawing on a catchment area of nearly 115,000sq km, or about half the size of the state of Victoria.
The dam will provide some 850,000 megalitres of water to convert through irrigation some 50,000 hectares of grazing land into 500 new farms capable of producing crops of the highest quality.
“And 130,000 people in Townsville and Thuringowa will receive a water supply that is guaranteed and pure,” Mr Hawke said.
“No wonder the dream of a dam inspired so many people for so long.
“No wonder the Federal Government is proud to say we have fully funded the realisation of the dream, to the tune of $129 million.
“No wonder Ted Lindsay pleased.”
Mr Hawke said he took “unqualified pride” in the federal Labor governments throughout the long saga of the construction of the dam.
“In 1889 that is, 99 years ago, W. H. Mckinnon presented his enginlooks eer’s report which for the first time proposed a large dam on the Burdekin River to irrigate the surrounding land,” Mr Hawke said.
“It was the Chifley Labor Government which set up a joint Commonwealth-state Ministerial Committee to investigate northern development.
“That was in 1945, 99 years after the Burdekin was discovered and named by Leichardt.
“Chifley’s committee selected the proposal for a dam at the Burdekin Falls as the one most suited for further development.
“But various promises by successive conservative governments came to nothing.”
Mr Hawke said it was not until 1974 that, with the decision of the Whitlam government, the first Commonwealth funds were granted for water resource development in the Burdekin region.
Three million dollars was allocated for the building of the Clare Weir, a pilot scheme for future large-scale development and $1 million was allocated to investigate the Burdekin Basin’s potential for development.
“In 1976 a Townsville resident and Labor Alderman called Ted Lindsay helped establish the TownsvilleBurdekin Regional Water Committee which went on to play a major role in advancing the cause of the Burdekin Dam,” Mr Hawke said.
“It must be a matter for great satisfaction for Ted, who is of course now my colleague the Member for Herbert, to be here today to witness this ceremony in the knowledge that his hard work and dedication helped bring it about.”
Back in September 1983, in Question Time in Parliament, Mr Hawke said he was asked a question by Mr Lindsay about whether the dam would be completed by 1988.
“I said then that the Federal Government was totally committed to building the dam and that we were aiming to finish it in 1988 – our Bicentennial year,” Mr Hawke said.
“It was clear even then that the opening of the Burdekin Dam would be a major event of our Bicentennial celebrations.
“It is a tremendous symbol of the reconstruction of the Australian economy which has occurred under this government.
“And it is, in anyone’s book, a significant achievement of nation building, something for which future generations will be indebted and grateful to us.”
Mr Hawke paid tribute to Leightons Contractors who won an Australian Federation of Construction Contractors, Engineering Award of Excellence for their innovative engineering “which hastened the speed at which concrete was placed”.
“It is a project which underlies the commitment of this Federal Government to the wellbeing of the people of North Queensland,” Mr Hawke said to the gathered crowd as he concluded. “And it is a project which proves again the truth that, through constructive co-operation, Australians can perform great tasks and complete great achievements.”