Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This evening I am delighted to report to the Senate that the Goldfields Water Supply pipeline in Western Australia has been recognised through the awarding of the International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark award by the American Society of Civil Engineers. This is the third such project in Australia to be recognised, the other two being the Sydney Harbour Bridge project and the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. It joins such other projects as the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Panama Canal and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, which have gained similar recognition.

This particular project commenced in 1895 and was completed in January 1903 by the then Public Works Department of Western Australia. It included the building of a weir at Mundaring to the east of Perth and a 566-kilometre steel pipeline—the first steel pipeline of its type ever built in the world and, until the 1960s, the longest water pipeline in the world; for some 60 years it remained the longest water pipeline in the world. It also included eight pumping stations that supplied water to towns on its way to the goldfields, where it ended at Kalgoorlie.

The chief executive officer of the now Water Corporation, replacing the Public Works Department, made this statement recently:

This accolade is great recognition for those who built the pipeline and for the many people involved in upgrading and maintaining over the last 106 years.

ASCE international director, Mr Potenciano Leoncio, said:

When built, it was an innovative, ambitious and daring water engineering project. Incredibly, more than 100 years later, it is still operating and carrying much-needed water to the Goldfields and agricultural regions.

This award celebrates the life of Charles Yelverton O’Connor, after whom the electorate of O’Connor in Western Australia is named. His presence in Western Australia in 1891 actually had its origins in the preparation for Federation.

The then premier of the colony, John Forrest, had come to Melbourne to negotiate with other states and colonies, and at that time New Zealand was also contemplating joining the Federation. Apparently in discussions over dinner, Forrest said to the assembled party, ‘I have urgent need of an engineer,’ and the New Zealand representative said, ‘We have a wonderful Irish engineer in CY O’Connor. We have no further need of him and cannot afford his services,’ and that is how O’Connor came to the colony. What is interesting is that shortage of water, which was the catalyst for the building of the water pipeline at that time, remains today.

But this was a time when the colony of Western Australia was in severe financial straits. Gold had been discovered at Coolgardie in 1892 and again in Kalgoorlie in 1893. Water was in such demand that it was actually more expensive than whisky. Not only was water in short supply and unreliable, but also diseases such as typhoid and others that are associated with unhealthy water were actually having a severe impact. At that time, towards the coast the colony was not surviving financially; its only future lay in a secure supply of water to the goldfields so that they could be exploited.

O’Connor came to the colony in 1891 and in 1892-93 commenced the design work for the pipeline. His early work in Western Australia was the Port of Fremantle. He was also the railways commissioner, so he was actively involved in this activity. He was supported by the then premier, Lord John Forrest.

When the pipeline was first conceived, everybody thought the man was mad. It would involve 76,000 tons of steel—at that time the biggest ever order for steel in the world. Because of uncertainty the order was split equally between the United States and Germany. The project commenced in 1895 with the building of the Mundaring Weir, which, of course, is still in use today. O’Connor was an innovator of the most incredible kind. He came up with a new technique for joining the pipes with less friction—not requiring the use of rivets—so that the pipeline could be more quickly assembled.

Interestingly enough, he was the first to introduce the concept of an eight-hour working day. CY O’Connor was revolutionary in his attention to detail and particularly to the welfare and wellbeing of the workers—as you would understand, there were many. Regrettably, as often happens in these cases, he and Forrest were the subject of the most severe criticism. There was vicious criticism by other parliamentarians in the colony, who said it was a waste of money and that it would never work—‘You can’t pump water uphill,’ which, in fact it did. There was also criticism by the editor of the then Sunday Times newspaper. History records that approximately nine months before the project was completed, CY O’Connor was so overcome by the criticism and by the constant anxiety he and his family suffered as a result that he actually took his own life in March 1902.

It is a myth in Western Australia that O’Connor actually killed himself in desperation when Forrest, in Kalgoorlie, turned on the tap and no water arrived. That was not the case and he had already proved that his project would work. Regrettably, some months after he actually passed away it was in fact the case that when Forrest turned the tap on the water did not flow, but the fault lay at pumping station No. 8, where the person in control had failed to activate the valves. It is one of those unfortunate circumstances where a great man, a person who revolutionised Western Australia, was not there to see his project come to its conclusion. At the same time, whilst he has been well recognised, there is a concern that more could always have been done.

The engineering side is interesting but more important is the social side of O’Connor’s contribution to Western Australia through the agency of the pipeline. As I mentioned earlier, prior to the pipeline being completed a reliable supply of quality water was in very short supply. The end result of that was that there were very few women and even fewer children on the goldfields simply because it was not possible for family life to flourish without a reliable supply of water. The second point to be made which also relates to family life is that whilst we refer to it as the goldfields pipeline of some 566 kilometres, it is often overlooked that that pipeline also services some 100 to 200 kilometres north and south of the pipeline through our Western Australian wheat belt.

My own grandmother came from Ireland as a young woman at the turn of the last century, and it was really not until there was a reliable supply of water occasioned by the water pipeline that people like my grandmother were able to actually join their husbands in what were the developing areas of the farming properties of the wheat belt, so O’Connor’s contribution has been absolutely significant in turning what was a very male dominated life on the goldfields and in the developing wheat belt into a robust family life. The man’s contribution has been absolutely profound.

Here are some interesting statistics: at that time the cost of the scheme was ₤2.655 million or $5.3 million, and it would be interesting to reflect on what the actual cost of the pipeline would be today; there were some 60,000 pipes which enabled up to 5.6 million gallons to be pumped—or in today’s terms 25½ million litres—each day. Therefore, it has not been the lifeblood but the aorta of southern Western Australia, supplying the arterial water that has kept the goldfields open and such a prominent contributor to the economy of our state and the nation.

I conclude with my acknowledgment to the Western Australian Institute of Engineers who sponsored the application for the award in the first place and also to the National Trust of Australia WA for their commitment to the interpretation and conservation of the goldfields supply. I refer particularly to my great friend Tom Perrigo, the CEO, and the manager of the Golden Pipeline Project, Anne Brake.