Kōrero: Hydroelectricity

Commissioning day

Commissioning day

When the Waitaki hydroelectric scheme was opened in October 1934, everyone turned up to hear the speeches. The scheme’s dam was built with pick, shovel and wheelbarrow, in order to create work for the unemployed. Conditions on site and in the camp were bad. The Waitaki power station township’s medical association, set up in response, was a vital precursor to the Labour government’s creation of the welfare state in the late 1930s. Dr D. G. McMillan and Arnold Nordmeyer were central figures in the association, and went on to become ministers in the first Labour government.

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: PAColl-9381

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Te tuhi tohutoro mō tēnei whārangi:

John E. Martin, 'Hydroelectricity - Hydro, 19th and early 20th centuries', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/mi/photograph/22462/commissioning-day (accessed 29 March 2024)

He kōrero nā John E. Martin, i tāngia i te 11 Mar 2010