Bruce Lloyd is uniquely placed to speak about Rochester’s current predicament of being under constant threat of inundation due to the inability of Lake Eppalock to handle any significant rain event or alter legislated operating conditions.
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After all, the 86-year-old was at the official opening of the lake in 1964.
Mr Lloyd arrived in the Rochester area with his parents as a two-year-old, just a few months before the 1939 flood.
He was the Campaspe River township’s federal member of parliament for 25 years, raised his family in the nearby district of Timmering, and experienced three flood events before relocating to a Congupna property in 1979.
Mr Lloyd, who replaced former Prime Minister John McEwen as the Member for Murray at a by-election in March 1971, spoke to the Campaspe News last week about his experiences and view on the current situation.
For the record, Mr McEwen was the 18th Prime Minister of Australia and famously took on the role in a caretaker capacity after the disappearance of Harold Holt while swimming in the ocean at Portsea in December 1967.
Like Mr Lloyd, Mr McEwen was active in farmer organisations and in the Country Party for the electorate of Echuca.
That seat was abolished in 1937 and Mr McEwen moved to Indi, before Murray was carved out of the north-western portion of Indi in 1949 and he transferred to that electorate.
From Chiltern originally, Mr McEwen retired to a cattle property in the Goulburn Valley. He had served for 36 years and five months when he retired and was the last serving parliamentarian from the Great Depression era.
He came to prominence in the late-1920s through his farming prowess on his property, ‘Chilgala’ (a combination of his own birthplace Chiltern and his wife’s birthplace Tongala), and was inaugural chairman of Stanhope Dairy Co-operative.
Mr Lloyd raised his family on a property at Timmering and was re-elected on 10 occasions between 1972 and 1993 before he retired prior to the general election of 1996.
He was deputy leader of the National Party from 1987-93, having been president of the Victorian Country Party for the two years prior to his election and in his 16th year of politics was elected deputy leader of the National Party.
He was deputy to three Nationals leaders — Ian Sinclair, Charles Blunt and Tim Fischer — and retired from politics just after Australia Day in 1996. He was succeeded in the electorate of Murray by Liberal Sharman Stone.
Now 86, Mr Lloyd lives just outside Shepparton on his property ‘Fairley Downs’.
He spent most of his young years in Rochester, attending primary school at Nanneella and Rochester Higher Elementary School before attending Geelong College.
Mr Lloyd went from high school to the farm and then later into politics.
He took over the farm from his father after he was left an only child when his older sister died in her 20s.
All three of Mr Lloyd’s children — Sandy, David and Evan — were born in Rochester, and for one year were all at Rochester Primary School together.
The family moved to Canberra for a short time in 1979, before buying Fairley Downs at the end of 1983.
Mr Lloyd will have owned the historic property, which was inundated with water last October, for 40 years later this year.
Last week, Mr Lloyd answered a series of questions about his own experiences, although for much of his representation of Rochester the region was in drought.
He remembered the construction of Lake Eppalock, which started in 1960, built by the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission of Victoria.
The water storage facility remained below 15 per cent capacity for eight years of his tenure due to drought, but always had the ability to fill quickly — it went from eight per cent in June 2010 to full capacity by November.
The lake overflowed its spillway for the first time since 1996 on November 28, 2010, after significant rainfall in the preceding 48 hours.
Mr Lloyd laid Rochester’s devastation and ongoing concern for future flooding of the township squarely at the feet of the Murray-Darling Basin management and South Australia.
He said the way the ownership and distribution of water had gone in the region was a “disgrace’’ and the South Australian Government’s approach to managing water was ”selfish’’.
Mr Lloyd was speaking before his departure on an annual pilgrimage to Queensland to avoid the worst of the southern winter.
He answered a series of questions in his first interview with the Campaspe News in several decades.
When did your family arrive on the property at Timmering?
We arrived in 1939, moving from a small wheat farming area near Narrandera, just in time for a flood.
I did my primary schooling and part of my secondary schooling while living at Rochester. I was lucky enough at that time to travel to England, through the Sun Youth Travel program, to spend a few months in England.
What were the major subjects of the day in the Rochester region?
For my family, the big things were the weather, dairy, the church. I was in the Scouts at Rochester, the Presbyterian church, a member of the Rochester ag society, Country Party, primary producers union, dairyfarmers association, wool and wheat growers, and played tennis. I was also Young Farmers state president when we had 5000 members in Victoria. There are virtually none today. I was the youngest ever Victorian Country Party state president in 1969.
Was Lake Eppalock a topic of conversation at the dinner table?
I was at the opening. I had been mentored by a man called Ernest ‘Watershed’ Jackson, a member of the State Rivers. He was ahead of his time and was quite proud of Eppalock, because it was the first dam where money was being spent on conservation in the surrounding area. He didn’t live long enough to be aware of the storage problems.
Can you compare the reaction to floods in 1956 and 1974-75 to what is happening in Rochester now?
I can understand how people are feeling. I was determined that I was going to move away from the area in the 1970s because I was sick of being flooded. The irony was that between 1975 and 2011 there was no flood.
Tell me an interesting story from your Rochester days?
Every term holiday I returned to Rochester (from Geelong College). I remember as a 14-year-old I used to be allowed to drive the Dodge — always someone in the passenger seat, mind you.
I remember the day I went to get my licence. The police said they had noticed me driving for a while. They told me to drive down to the post office and collect the mail and drive back. They watched me and that was my driving test.
When you came into politics in 1971, was Lake Eppalock a topic of discussion, or debate?
Lake Eppalock was not a significant issue. It was always a question of water price and allocation. Rivers were always a major topic, because I covered the area from Kerang almost to Albury.
The 1960s were above average rainfall, the 1970s the same, then came the 1980s and we had quite a bad drought. As a rural person, I grew up knowing you had floods and you had drought, that was life. It was either one or the other.
What are your memories of floods in Rochester?
The 1974 flood I remember because we couldn’t get into Rochester because the road was under water on each side of the bridge.
In 1956 I attached a galvanised iron drinking trough to an old drum and I could sail right across our property. We were affected by the Little Campaspe — it came out of the Campaspe River south of Rochester, then flowed across the Kyabram road and right through our place. That then joined up with the Wallenjoe Creek, but water never went into the house.
Was there much discussion at state and federal levels of government in relation to what happened in Rochester?
The main issue in the 1974 and 1975 floods were levee banks along the Murray and Goulburn rivers. Rochester just accepted it had floods.
Can you compare that to what you have seen from afar in regard to the 2022 event?
Rochester was affected hugely compared to what I had faced before. This was far worse than what I had ever seen. It was also far worse for us here at Bunbartha. I understand people dealing with insurers, because it was quite a shock to me to find we had no flood insurance for the house because it was part of farm.
Have you followed the discussion about the installation of flood gates at Lake Eppalock to allow for a more controlled release of water, when required? What is your opinion on that?
You do need a spillway of some sort to control levels. I am aware of what is happening at Eildon, Hume and Eppalock. The others at least have spillways.
Do you have an opinion on what should be done to ease the concerns of people who live in the town?
It is a question of management of the storage levels. It seems to me that the spillway is a necessary adjunct, particularly with above average heavy rainfall.
I think the changes to the Murray-Darling Basin were a disaster, particularly the fact it is controlled by South Australia.
South Australia has been guaranteed flows from the Murray River from 1914 under the River Murray Agreement. The Murray-Darling Basin agreement has made it worse.
Campaspe News