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Aboriginal Men, Private Contractors and Liddell Power Station

Liddell Power Station is located between the towns of Muswellbrook and Singleton and during the 1970’s Goodsir and Cooper employed an Aboriginal company called Smith’s General Contractors to lay rail siding at the power station. A director of the Aboriginal company was called by Goodsir and Cooper a fortnight after the work was completed and was informed:

Two weeks after they called us down and commended the Aboriginal men who did the work as to how well they behaved. There was still a lot of discrimination in those days against Aboriginal people, but they said we were more than welcome back to do more jobs. The men stayed at the Central Hotel in the main street of Singleton and spent their evenings sitting around playing guitars and singing and they never thought Aboriginal people could be so well behaved, and a lot better than some of the other work crews that stayed at the hotel.

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Source:
Wannin Thanbarran
A History of Aboriginal and European Contact in Muswellbrook and the Upper Hunter Valley
Greg Blyton, Deirdre Heitmeyer and John Maynard
Umulliko Centre for Indigenous Higher Education
The University of Newcaste
A project of the Muswellbrook Shire Council Aboriginal Reconciliation Committee