My Warm Table ... with Sonia
My Warm Table ... with Sonia
Turning the lights on - a history of EPT, migration and modernising Australia with Matthew Quomi
In this episode we stop a moment to think about how we are so connected to electricity.
We’re going to honour the courageous and skillful men who climbed heights without fear to assemble and construct those tall steel structures which look like mini Eiffel Towers across our Australian landscape.
We’re going to step back in time to 1951 when the Australian branch of an Italian company set up in Australia to connect our vast, remote country to a reliable electricity source which enables a future of possibility and prosperity.
Electric Power Transmission Pty Ltd or EPT - was that company.
EPT holds an important chapter in Australia’s story. The story of migrants making their way in a new land. The story of connecting Australia across a remarkable and unforgiving landscape. The story of powering Australia into prosperity – signalling the start of industry, new jobs and new economic opportunities.
The EPT story brought the 1956 Olympics to our TV screens, it linked Carnarvon to the NASA space program and it was a pioneer of WA’s industrial future underpinning Alcoa, BP, Hamersley Iron and even the North West Shelf.
EPT turned on the lights for Australia, so it’s only fair that we should shine a little light on it today. To help tell this story, I’m joined by Matthew Quomi around the warm table. Matthew’s father worked for EPT and this paternal legacy inspired Matthew, an architect and passionate historian, to research and write a book about EPT and its communities.
Matthew has spent the last few years sharing warm tables across Australia piecing together the history of EPT with the pioneers of Australia’s energy legacy – migrant men now aged in their 70s and 80s.
Warm thanks to:
Sponsor: Females Over Forty-five Fitness in Victoria Park
Sound Engineering: Damon Sutton
Music: William A Spence
... and all our generous and inspiring guests around the warm table this season!
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My Warm Table, translated into Italian is Tavola Calda. These were the words my Papa used to describe a table of good friends, good food and good conversation. I always aim to create a tavola calda in my life and I hope this podcast encourages you to do so too!
Welcome to My Warm Table. I'm Sonia Nolan and season two of this podcast about passion and purpose is brought to you by Females Over 45 Fitness, or FOFF, in Victoria Park
Introductory Voice Over of Previous Guests:My name is Kate Chaney. My name is Bonnie Davies. My name is Madeleine King. My name is Valerio Fantinelli. My name is Lyn Beazley. My name is Alexandra Helen Flanagan Hi, my name is Sharon Todd. My name is Lucy Cooke and I'm the CEO of SpaceDraft. I'm the first Aboriginal female funeral director. CEO and founder of Motion by the Ocean. I'm a psychologist and a professor in psychology at Curtin University. CEO and founder of Lionheart Camp for Kids. Around My Warm Table. Or listening on Sonia Nolan's My Warm Table. Just sharing a yarn with her.
Sonia Nolan:Electricity is undoubtedly one of the greatest inventions of all time. It's revolutionised our world in every aspect of our daily life, connecting all our communications, powering our homes, our workplaces, and now even powering our cars. I know we take it for granted, we flick the switch and everything we need just magically comes to life. Well today we're going to stop a moment and think about how we are so connected to this incredible power source that we call electricity. We're going to honour the courageous and skillful men who climbed heights without fear to assemble and construct those tall steel towers, which look like mini Eiffel Towers across our landscape. We're going to step back in time to 1951 when the Australian branch of an Italian company set up in Australia to connect our vast remote country to a reliable electricity source, which enabled a future of possibility and prosperity. Electric Power Transmission Proprietary Limited, or EPT was that company. EPT holds an important chapter in Australia's story, the story of migrants making their way in a new land, the story of connecting Australia across the remarkable and unforgiving landscape, the story of powering Australia into prosperity, signalling the start of industry, new jobs and new economic opportunities. The EPT story brought the 1956 Melbourne Olympics to our TV screens. It linked Carnarvon to the NASA Space Programme, and it was a pioneer of WA's industrial future underpinning Alcoa, BP, Hamersley Iron, and even the North West Shelf. And for me, EPT is a deeply personal family story. It's a company etched with gratitude in the memory of my childhood. My father, not better to have a chin joined EPT in 1958. During more than 30 years with the company he built towers of power, fields of friendships, and his hard work, sweat and fingerprints are embedded in many of the structures we know across WA's landscape. EPT turned on the lights for Australia. So it's only fair that we should shine a little light on it today. And to help me tell this story, I'm honoured to be joined by Matthew Quomi around the Warm Table. Matthew's father also worked for EPT, and his paternal legacy inspired Matthew, an architect and passionate historian to research and write a book about EPT and its communities. Matthew spent the last few years sharing warm tables across Australia piecing together the history of EPT with the pioneers of Australia's energy legacy, migrant men who are now aged in their 70s and 80s. Matthew spends several months a year here in Perth, away from his home in Victoria, to humbly pursue this passion project and capture these important stories. And I'm so delighted to have him join me today around the warm table. Welcome, Matthew.
Matthew Quomi:Thank you, Sonia.
Sonia Nolan:This is such a deeply personal story for me. And I'm already feeling emotional, which is not a good start, is it Matthew?
Matthew Quomi:Both of us, Sonia.
Sonia Nolan:But because it is a family story for both of us. Can you tell me about your EPT connection?
Matthew Quomi:Well, my father came to Australia in 1962 and started working for a EPT, his brother in law and his older brother already here working for the company. And that was his, his beginning of his life in Australia.
Sonia Nolan:And it was sort of a typical beginning for a lot of migrant men from Italy, wasn't it? And Europe.
Matthew Quomi:Yes. After the war, it was a safe island in a land where they felt like foreigners.
Sonia Nolan:Yeah, and you know, it's interesting, because that's something that I hadn't really connected. You know, we sort of read about World War One, World War Two and 1945 was the end of World War Two. But of course things don't magically go back to normal after such a a huge upset in the world and and we really need to cast our minds back to the late 1940s and 1950s. And it was a whole other time and era and a time when things were being rebuilt, weren't they? Yeah. And I guess that's where the story of a PT in Australia began.
Matthew Quomi:Yes.
Sonia Nolan:So tell me about it, was it 1951?
Matthew Quomi:EPT was established in Sydney in 1951, they won a contract to build a transmission line from the south of Sydney near Port Kembla to Sydney. At the time, Sydney was beset with blackouts and power rationing. So the construction of that transmission line was part of the government's effort to reinforce the electricity system for Sydney.
Sonia Nolan:So what was there beforehand, like, how are people getting their electricity to their houses before these power lines were built?
Matthew Quomi:The electricity network at the time was broken up into different municipalities. So each council was producing their own power. The power line from the first one that EPT built, started at a new power station that was built on Lake Illawarra. And it was the beginning of starting to change the way they generate electricity. So rather than bringing the coal to the city and burning the coal there, they burned the coal at the coal field and then transmitted the electricity to the city and that had other benefits, environmental being one of them.
Sonia Nolan:Yeah, right, I see. So definitely all coal generated power stations in those days - in the 1950s. And look still here we are in 2023. And still, a lot of these power stations are coal generated, we've got, you know, certainly an ambition in Western Australia now to stop the coal powered fire station in Collie. That's, I think being pushed out to I think 2024/2025. But definitely the times are changing there. But gosh, coal was where it was at, certainly for the last 70 years.
Matthew Quomi:It was cutting edge technology at that time, and it was cheap. Whereas now things have changed, and renewables is the way to go.
Sonia Nolan:And it is a time of change now, but certainly in the 1950s, it was a time of change then, wasn't it? And we are talking cutting edge technology, coal power. So tell me about some of the changes that were happening in the 1950s that really sort of set the landscape for EPT.
Matthew Quomi:Well, being postwar and the government's policy - populate or perish - to grow the economy was in full swing. And having a reliable power system was part of that. Australia didn't have the expertise at the time to build power lines. EPT was a subsidiary of an Italian own company that built high voltage transmission lines all around the world. So basically, there was no competition for them. In the beginning. Everything was bought out from Italy, including the steel for the towers.
Sonia Nolan:Is that so?
Matthew Quomi:Oh, everything was brought into Australia, there was a concession for them to import steel without any import tax.
Sonia Nolan:Well, they wouldn't have been able to make steel in Australia at the time, would they?
Matthew Quomi:It was limited because they didn't have the power to run the power plant.
Sonia Nolan:I was going to say, it's like a chicken and egg, isn't it? Chicken and egg. So and that, again, brings us to how important this time and place was with EPT coming and setting the power stations up, because that then meant we could have all the industry that we're having today.
Matthew Quomi:That's right.
Sonia Nolan:Yeah. And we're gonna get to that, certainly Western Australia was an absolute, you know, pioneer of things that allowed us to have Hamersley Iron Ore, Alcoa, BP, all these names that we all know now we rely on.
Matthew Quomi:North West Shelf.
Sonia Nolan:North West Shelf, exactly, which continues today. So all of those industries are underpinned by the work that EPT did.
Matthew Quomi:Yes.
Sonia Nolan:Yeah, definitely. So tell me more about that time in 1950. Because I believe there's a link between and you know, an interesting link between EPT and the Olympics in Melbourne in 1956. What- what is the connection there?
Matthew Quomi:Well, EPT, when they started out, came to Australia with a group of about 100 men, and they started building that transmission line at the end of 1951. It was completed in 1953. And even though there was some foresight to expand into allied industries, they still weren't sure what was going to happen, how the company was going to evolve. A big part of their decision to expand into Australia was the prospect of the Snowy Mountain Scheme.Which had started but the big power lines weren't being constructed yet. And so there was this gap between that first contract and the Snowy Mountain Scheme and the initial project in Sydney. So they needed to do diversify to keep the workforce busy. One of the first projects was a power station on the opposite side of Sydney on Lake Macquarie. They erected the steel for that power station in 1952, and 1953. But when when the Olympics came to Australia, that heralded the start of transmission of television broadcast in Australia.
Sonia Nolan:That's right, TV was just sort of starting, wasn't it?
Matthew Quomi:That was the catalyst for it.
Sonia Nolan:The catalyst? Right, okay.
Matthew Quomi:And they needed towers to to mount equipment on there. And EPT was the obvious contractor to start doing that. So the first TV tower, built in Australia for broadcast was done in Sydney for Channel Nine and EPT built that.
Sonia Nolan:And of course, then, in order to be able to look at your TV in your lounge room, you need power, right? It's so chicken and egg, isn't it? Yeah. So okay, so-
Matthew Quomi:Huge opportunity at the time, when there was no other contractor with EPT's experience to do it. So it was a, it was a very lucky time to be involved in in Australia's construction industry then.
Sonia Nolan:It really was wasn't it? So how many- do you know how many people worked for EPT at that time in the early 50s.
Matthew Quomi:The numbers fluctuated, but it was continually growing, because they not only went into television towers and power stations, they built bridges. As as telecommunications spread around Australia, they built the vast majority of the Telstra network that we have now in Australia. So there were towers popping up on the horizon all over the country. So probably, they went up to over a couple of 1000 people at one stage.
Sonia Nolan:Significant wasn't it? And it's interesting, you talk about the towers that are popping up and I said in my intro, they look like mini Eiffel Towers, you know. And the reason I say that, as well as is because when my parents got married, you know, the Italian tradition is to have a bomboniere. And they actually had little Eiffel Tower bomboniere which I think my dad wanted, because not because we're French, by any stretch were Italian, but because they reminded him of the towers of EPT. So yeah, so we've got these little Eiffel Tower or you know, sort of EPT towers as the bomboniere from that day. I want to go back to the Olympics. So you know, I just want to draw that really strong thread. So the Olympics were coming to Melbourne in 1956. Everyone wanted to you know, this is the age of television is just the advent of television around the world. And in Australia, certainly. And so they wanted to be able to broadcast the games, right. So hence, EPT had the contract to build the tower. And then everyone wanted to be watching it. So we had more towers being built. So to connect Australia, is that fair? Or have I missed a step?
Matthew Quomi:That's right, all over Australia, towers were popping up and slowly spread from the East Coast, all the way to Western Australia. EPT did build towers in, in Western Australia, in those early days of television. One of the towers was the ABC tower, down in the city, which was there till a couple of years ago, but also all the way down to to Mt Barca. There's a huge tower down there, that's still there today is still in operation. And that was built by EPT 1966.
Sonia Nolan:So it really was connecting the entire Australian landscape, wasn't it? So you've got this to these electricity towers, all connecting and telecommunications towers? And, you know, just all of that capability that charged us forward?
Matthew Quomi:It's slowly spread over the whole country, as in the wake of the television of television. Starting in Australia, then the what was the Postmaster General's department which preceded the telecom they started building their network, which spread all the way over all over Australia. And EPT built the vast majority of that network which even traversed the Nullarbor, that last section that linked all the capital cities, was completed in 1970. And that's 58 towers that crossed the Nullarbor in the middle of nowhere, very difficult circumstances to work and live in, but EPT built it. And those towers are still on the Nullarbor today.
Sonia Nolan:So there's another little photo opportunity if anyone's driving across the Nullarbor is to take photographs of these towers that are still there.
Matthew Quomi:You can't miss them every 50 kilometres look on the horizon, they'll pop up.
Sonia Nolan:So tell me about the living conditions because that is harsh times and middle of nowhere and a lot of these in employees, a lot of these workers were from overseas. So probably not expecting these rugged conditions in Australia. I know my dad used to speak, Papa used to speak about, you know, what he'd experienced and the hard work the sweat. And I don't think he even had words to describe the the difficulty that everyone in faced on those times, but they did it with such joy because it was such a mate ship. I mean, there's so much in there that I'd love to unpack with you, Matthew. So tell me about the conditions.
Matthew Quomi:I don't know what they expected when they arrived. Because we think when you think about it, the war ending in 45. And only six years later, EPT was started. At the at the time, the government had a policy, which which described Italians as enemy aliens.
Sonia Nolan:Oh we were against them in the war.
Matthew Quomi:Yes. And there was still that suspicion. They were the first group was able to come to Australia on a special worker's visa, specifically for that project. And their movements were, were controlled and observed, because there was that suspicion still.
Sonia Nolan:But we had prisoner of war camps here in WA for Italian people who'd been here for years and years, but they were put in the prisoner of war camps. Yeah, and that's no doubt across Australia.
Matthew Quomi:And a lot of those early pioneers that came with EPT, they were given an enemy alien passport. And when they moved from camp to camp, they had to, they had to go to the, to the local post office and register their movement, it was the government wanted to know what they were up to. The first camp or the first camps were tent camps, very primitive conditions, basically, a clearing chopped out from the bush, water was drawn from a cart and put into a tank. EPT had their own cooks, they brought from Italy, their own chaplain, who acted as a social worker.
Sonia Nolan:That seems pretty progressive of an organisation to be doing that in those days.
Matthew Quomi:Yes it was, but I think they understood that these men were coming so far from home. And being in a foreign country, they needed that level of support, almost on the same level as good Italian cooking. The cooks were very important.
Sonia Nolan:Oh, they were absolutely.
Matthew Quomi:The camp the projects wouldn't have been able to run with without the cooks, the food was very high quality Italian cooking, and lots of it. Most of them, you know, all the men still talk about those days. So I think coming from Italy, coming from very poor circumstances and living in these, these conditions, I think the Australians probably looked at and think well, look at all these single men living in, in a tent in the bush, but they were happy though, they were earning money. They felt like they were contributing to society. And many of them stayed and built their own lives in Australia and became Australian citizens, and they were very proud of what they were doing in their new country.
Sonia Nolan:Oh very much so, there was so much pride. And it's interesting, I was just having this conversation the other day with a friend we're driving through, going to Rockingham to where I grew up and past the Kwinana industrial strip. And a lot of people sort of look at it with disdain, you know, look at the industrial strip with disdain, because it's, you know, it's a bit smelly. And there's, you know, sort of the environmental side of it, and absolutely, you know, certainly come in leaps and bounds, but it depends, which is you look at it. And my parents always looked at that, as you know, they saw the industrial strip, and they saw opportunity, they saw jobs, they saw a future for their family, because they came from a place where there just wasn't that. There wasn't the opportunity of industry, there wasn't at the opportunity of bright economic future, outside of, you know, a village sort of setting. And so, you know, the eyes that they looked at it with was like, "Wow, wonderful. Look, what we've done for our family actually being here, so close to opportunity."
Matthew Quomi:Yes, well I think EPT looked at Kwinana in the same light in 1951, there was never an idea to start an operation in Western Australia. The population wasn't big enough. It was too far from Sydney. There was never - there was never the idea to start an operation. And that all came about by circumstance and the opportunities that Australia presented at the time.
Sonia Nolan:So what was that circumstance? No pressure.
Matthew Quomi:So in 1953, Australia, EPT was constructing EPT was very good at that. And they said, "Well, grain silos in Victoria. And at the time, the world cartel had been disrupted by Argentina that dumped an enormous load of grain onto the market at a lower price. And by the following year, Australia knew that a lot of grain was going to come on the market that they wouldn't be able to sell. So they were wondering, what are we going to do with all this grain that's coming in? So, the CBH in Western Australia found out about EPT building these silos in Geelong and contacted the office in Sydney and said,"Listen, this is our problem- we need a storage facility of about for about 5 million bushels," enormous amount of grain "and we need it built quickly before the next harvest. Can you help us out?" this is an opportunity, it's even though it's so far away from Sydney, what can we do" and so very quickly, they came up with a design. The steel was fabricated in Italy, and shipped to to Fremantle. In the meantime, a crew started on the ground, the site in Midland, built on the concrete base, and by the time that was ready, they were unloading steel at Fremantle, and the Midland silo it started to started to rise from the horizon in and change the local skyline forever until it was demolished in 2016.
Sonia Nolan:Only quite recently, it was demolished. So from 1953. Yeah. Wow.
Matthew Quomi:Now and that was the first project EPT built in Western Australia, they established a construction camp in Robinson road. And, but once the project was finished they packed up and returned to Sydney, because it EPT management didn't see a future for the company in Western Australia.
Sonia Nolan:Which is quite funny now, isn't it? Thinking back about all the things that EPT was then involved in in how Australia or Western Australia then sort of took off with regards to industry? Yeah.
Matthew Quomi:EPT, I think, always viewed themselves as strictly as a powerline company. There was a company policy of limited diversification, but no, it was it was we built power lines, that's what we're good at that we don't really want to venture too far from that. But interestingly, for that project in Midland, one of the bosses from Sydney had just arrived in Australia, his name was Giuseppe Laginestra. He was a very interesting character, he was brought to Western Australia to start that project. And he, he was a visionary in many ways, he saw that there was a huge opportunity outside transmission Very significant for Western Australia. lines. And so, he was very early, very early on, he wanted to start doing labour hire, he wanted to build things apart from from, from transmission lines, and he was really the the person who pushed EPT to diversify outside of transmission lines. And he saw that there was huge opportunity in Australia for that. So very quickly, they started building blast furnaces in Port Kembla, Newcastle they started building fabrication workshops, outside of the Sydney workshop. So they they established a branches in Port Kembla, Newcastle, Whyalla, often on the back of the, the steel mills. And until one day he he heard about a project that was going to start in Western And for a EPT. Australia in 1964. And that was the Hamersley Iron Ore Project.
Sonia Nolan:And for EPT Yeah, so tell me what happened then. So now we're in 1964. We've heard that there's this thing called the Hamersley Iron Ore project, which is going to come about in WA in the in the northwest of Western Australia. And EPTs sort of put their hand up to be part of it.
Matthew Quomi:Yes. Giuseppe Laginatsra managed to land the contract for EPT to provide the vast majority of the labour for that project. So I think at any stage we had about up to 1500 men working on the project from anywhere, anywhere involved in anything from digging holes, loading those holes with ammonium nitrate to blast pouring concrete and obviously erecting steel at the port facility in Dampier and the mine site at Tom Price. There was the initial job was kicked off by a convoy that drove from Port Kembla that was headed by Mario Guidini, who very shortly afterwards was appointed Western Australia manager. They arrived on the beach at what was then known as King Bay. There was nothing there.
Sonia Nolan:What's it known as now, I was trying to work out what that place was, where is King Bay now?
Matthew Quomi:That's Dampier.
Sonia Nolan:That's Dampier. Right, okay. Yes.
Matthew Quomi:So they lived in tents on the beach. They built the service wharf to get the initial material and machinery on site, because they couldn't, there was no other way to access the site. They literally push the boulders out into the, into the bay and slowly, slowly they work their way up to about 1500 men.
Sonia Nolan:And my dad was one of them. Yeah, he definitely all the words you've said there you know that you just peppered my childhood there you know, you said Whyallah in Newcastle and blast furnace and steel mill and Dampier and Port Kembla Tom Price, Dampier, Hamersley. They're all words of my childhood, you know, all the things my dad would talk about. And I'm only just joining the dots now.
Matthew Quomi:Yes, EPT was- so the way it operated is an itinerant workforce or working in the middle of nowhere, they, this was a company run by Italians that only a few years earlier had been at war with Australia. EPT management was made up with many characters who had a fascist background. So there was that tension in the air as well in the background and and they were, there wasn't a company that put themselves out there and advertise they did things very quietly, and they just got on with the job. So that's why you and I, we look back at those times and wonder, you know, what were they up to? Because there's no records, there were very few records that exist. They just got on with the job.
Sonia Nolan:But you've made it your your life's passion, in fact, Matthew to go and find out the stories behind them all.
Matthew Quomi:Yes, that's right. I think I think it's a really important story that needs to be documented, because so few of the men are left now. And if it's not documented within the next 10 or 20 years, is a real risk that this great story will disappear.
Sonia Nolan:It will be lost. Yeah, absolutely. And that's where you and I first met, wasn't it, Matthew, I got this sort of very unexpected phone call one day, probably about, would it be 5 years ago, maybe? Yeah, five years ago, you rang and wanted to know if I was related to Norberto Faccin. And if he had worked at EPT. And whether I could share some of the story because you'd been- you were doing this research into EPT. And, and I must admit, I was a bit suspicious at first thinking, what, how do you know this? And what do you want to know? And then we met and I've been really enthralled and so inspired by what you're trying to do to help my family reconnect the stories to.
Matthew Quomi:It's all connection. So I was in the Latrobe Valley probably seven years ago. And speaking to a wonderful gentleman there, Fred de Scipio. And he was telling me about a project EPT did in the late 60s, for Alcoa, down in Geelong. And he was telling me about one of the foremen there your father. And that's our, that's our connection started.
Sonia Nolan:It did, didn't it? That's right. And yeah, these these memories, and these stories, these of these men who work together in all sorts of conditions, being very well fed. But you know, the mate ship that they would talk about was really special.
Matthew Quomi:So it was one big family. Maybe they most of them left their family behind in Italy, but they had a surrogate family, which was EPT.
Sonia Nolan:Yeah it was a very strong connection between the workers, you know, of any organisations talking about culture now, EPT had an incredible culture.
Matthew Quomi:It still remains in the in the next generation, like us, we never worked for the company, but we feel that connection.
Sonia Nolan:I remember it fondly. So EPT had a camp in Kwinana. So along the Kwinana strip there in in beach road, there was the - or was it Office Road.
Matthew Quomi:Beach road.
Sonia Nolan:Beach road, and Office road is the next line down. So in beach road, they had the EPT camp, and the men would would stay there. So it had, you know, it had a little they're not dongers - it was built, and it was like little rooms was almost like a little hotel and then had the mess, which was the kitchen with the most incredible food and in fact, people from around the other industries and the police officers would actually stop and have lunch with them with the EPT workers in the mess. It was well known in the strip in the Kwinana industrial strip about how well how could look the food was there.
Matthew Quomi:And the drinks.
Sonia Nolan:And the drinks. So that was a whole other time wasn't it, but then they had the la cantina, you know, they had the canteen where they had the pool table and they had that Chinotto which I love Chinotto, which is a very bitter Italian soft drink. And and I would go with my mum to pick up my dad in the afternoons after school and after his work and and I'd you know, race up as a child up to the La Cantina. And, you know, my brother and I might play pool with the men who were living there, have a drink at the bar as in a soft drink and we just were very welcomed and felt really part of that whole family. You know, they loved seeing the children.
Matthew Quomi:Many of the men now were single lived in the camp and they adopted many of these children many of those men had their - the married men, their children become the God children of these men because they didn't have anyone else.
Sonia Nolan:No, they didn't. Exactly right. And absolutely my brother and I, our God parents are you know, men from EPT. Yeah, yeah.
Matthew Quomi:Kwinana is an interesting story as well it's that again that was never foreseen to start a fabrication facility so far from from the east. But when they won the contract in for Tom Price, they needed a holding facility to where the men could be brought processed. They so they started this- they bought this block a land. Laginastra actually bought the block of land. It was a pig farm at the time.
Sonia Nolan:Oh was it really?
Matthew Quomi:Yeah. And he was saying to manager, "You know, we've got to get into Western Australia. There's a lot of opportunity that there's this big project starting" and, and the Managing Director, Dr Oriolo was against this and said, "No, it's too far. There's not enough work." So Laginastra went and bought the block in his own name. And then when it finally kicked off, there was this big rush on "Yeah, we've got to get a facility there. We got a scanning facility." And Laginastra said "don't worry I already bought the land."
Sonia Nolan:I got the pig farm, don't you worry.
Matthew Quomi:And so they built the they built the little they built the camp there with with the kitchen, Pietro Gallo was the first Cook, followed by Lovero Stokovich.
Sonia Nolan:Who I'm still in contact with so I'll have to tell him we had a connection here.
Matthew Quomi:Fantastic guy.
Sonia Nolan:And then ran many, many years later, ran the fish and chips shop in Rockingham.Great cook. Yeah.
Matthew Quomi:And then when, in 1966, there was plans to build the blast furnace thing Kwinana for Australian iron and steel, and EPT won a huge contract for that. So they built the first stage of the fabrication workshop to service that project. And from there they- being in Kwinana offered other opportunities as well. Because as we know Kwinana's the started for BP. Alcoa was there.
Sonia Nolan:Yeah, that was the next one. So BP was the first I think that was about 1962-63. And then Alcoa shortly followed. Yeah.
Matthew Quomi:So huge opportunities for diversification, which is EPT pursued, again, associated with what they were doing always with steel but now the focus became piping.
Sonia Nolan:And what about power, because then there was the major power station they built. But that was more about the construction rather than the power aspect. Is that right?
Matthew Quomi:There was there were two stages there. So just going back a little bit. In those early days, there was East Perth power station, there was South Fremantle power station. And thats you know, there was a small grid that went around Perth, with the construction of Kwinana power station became a much bigger installation, there needed to be new infrastructure. So EPT won a small contract to basically connect South Fremantle to Kwinana power station and then build a small power line to the substation, which is known as Northern terminal. But very quickly, that grew into a much larger project. The story is one afternoon, Dr. Oriolo was in town and turned up to the office and said, I've got a new contract for you, which no one knew about. He'd made a handshake agreement with the premier. And the original contract was extended to a much larger contract, which involved two huge 330KV transmission lines which circled Perth. And it even it caused a lot of problems because - well, politically for Tonkin anyway because...
Sonia Nolan:So John Tonkin was the premier with the handshake.
Matthew Quomi:Because it hadn't been put out to tender. But the deal was made with Oriolo because there was an issue with unemployment in Western Australia at the time. If EPT fabricated the steel here, EPT would be given the contract and that's what happened. They set up, they extended the workshop, they set up a galvanising plant and the steel for that transmission line was fabricated in Kwinana.
Sonia Nolan:And of course, local employment. Yeah, that was part of the deal. Yeah. The future was set for EPT in Kwinana.
Matthew Quomi:Yes, or further reinforced.
Sonia Nolan:Further reinforced because it was already there, yeah.
Matthew Quomi:Yeah. Because then they were building, they kept continuing to do work up north. So, as the mine started, the more mines started to be built. Paraburdoo, one of them, there was more work to be done there. So they won some contracts to build huge bridges up there for the railway line. Crashing facilities, provided labour services for the port facilities up in for, for loading of the iron ore. When the old river dam was built, they won a contract up there for a pipeline. And interesting thing out of that project that was the beginning of the company called United Construction, which is now listed on the stock exchange, it was three EPT tradesmen took over the EPT contract as a subcontract. And that was the beginning of their adventure in business together. Another huge success story.
Sonia Nolan:Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, I think there are a couple of other huge success stories from ex EPT people so we've got Transfield.
Matthew Quomi:Transfield was a big one.
Sonia Nolan:Monadelphous
Matthew Quomi:Monadelphous which came out of United as well. Just in Perth, you have Fremantle Steel Fabrication. And then you look at the second generation companies that have come out of these companies for example, Pacific Industrial Company, that was an offshoot from from Transfield, even Fremantle Hire.
Sonia Nolan:So it really did - EPT was the pioneer of all of this wasn't it?
Matthew Quomi:A lot of these companies that are around today that especially involved in steel fabrication, are actually, if you look deep enough they have the EPT DNA.
Sonia Nolan:Yeah, I like that, EPT DNA. Most definitely. And in fact, another very interesting part of Western Australia's landscape, which has got the EPT DNA is the antenna array at the Northwest Cape in Exmouth. Tell me the history of that.
Matthew Quomi:That's the thing, it's sort of US military base with spying capabilities. There's not a lot of information about it, but-
Sonia Nolan:We haven't been able to dig that one out.
Matthew Quomi:No, it's been quite quite difficult. EPT was definitely involved. These are, it's a big an antenna or a facility that was used during the Cold War. EPT was definitely involved in building the towers at the time they were the tallest structures in Australia.
Sonia Nolan:Is that right?
Matthew Quomi:But EPT was involved. To what extent, I don't know.
Sonia Nolan:And what about the Carnarvon satellite dish is that still part of that?
Matthew Quomi:That was built by EPT as fabricated in Sydney, and shipped over and erected. It has a sibling satellite dish in Ceduna in South Australia that was built at the same time. But that was the erection crew came from Western Australia, headed by Peter Coversim, long term highly capable steel erector.
Sonia Nolan:And my godfather.
Matthew Quomi:Oh and your godfather.
Sonia Nolan:And my godfather, there you go.
Matthew Quomi:There was a pioneer of EPT came in 1952, I think. Long term employee, was highly skilled at difficult erection projects. And he was in charge of the erection of those two projects.
Sonia Nolan:Is that so? Okay, so that was the Carnarvon satellite dish in the Northwest cape? Yeah, in Exmouth. And the satellite dish, is that part of the global communication satellite system? And it has a NASA link.
Matthew Quomi:Yes, that was in the 60s while you were talking about Cold War era. And obviously, the space race has a deep connection to that, the global community was looking to, to set up a, a global communications system, and that facility formed part of that. And it was also used by NASA, for the moon landings for... my mind is saying it's telecommunications but also the telemetry.
Sonia Nolan:So interesting, and you know, something that we wouldn't otherwise know had you not been doing all of this research, Matthew.
Matthew Quomi:It's a great story. It's but again, these these were these were built by EPT, this itinerant workforce working out in the middle of nowhere, living in tents, or caravans or huts, very difficult circumstances, they went out to these jobs, built them and then moved on to the next job, and really apart from the structures themselves, that didn't leave any other evidence of their presence in these places.
Sonia Nolan:And it's a really interesting part of Australia's history, because alongside all of this, so you've got Australia needing to have all of this infrastructure built, doesn't have the expertise or the people power here in its own country. So brings in a whole lot of expertise and a whole lot of men predominantly to do this, this very heavy work and important work. And Australia continues to grow and needs to keep growing, and we need to keep the workforce here. So a little known policy, I guess, of Australia's history is that in the late 50s and early 60s, they actually then went- Australia went overseas, knowing that they needed to keep the European men here, the Italian men and the men from what was Yugoslavia at the time, now Croatia and Serbia, and-
Matthew Quomi:Spanish, Portuguese, Greeks.
Sonia Nolan:Yeah, all of these beautiful, rich cultures. And they needed to keep these men here. And the Australian women didn't want to marry European men and European men didn't typically want to marry Australian women, there was still this real cultural divide, most definitely at that time. And so this, the Australian government knew that they needed
Unknown:Yes, and I think in terms of the EPT story, the the to keep the Australian these men here in Australia, and so needed to bring women in from Europe to be here. So there's a potential of men marrying and staying here and say, having their families here instead of then going back to their own country to marry and, and continue their lives there. And so that is the other part of my family story, Matthew, is that in 1960, my mother was one of those women who was able to come to Australia on this migration opportunity, because they were only looking for women at that time to come and start a life here in Australia. And so she was able to come at the age of 20, after begging my grandmother to allow her to come, because she had the opportunity to potentially then sponsor her brothers to come out to Australia to work which which happened. But you know, there's this interesting connection with migration and the building of Australia with these new cultures and races and foods and, and everything that went around that time. partners and wives don't get their fair mention, for the roles they played. Yes, the men were out there, with getting all the glory and building this huge structures. But though away from home, the partners and wives kept the families together, keep the household running. And that was very hard for them, because a lot of their husbands were away for long periods of time. And they were all alone. And often they didn't have the language. And they felt socially isolated, but they did an incredible job to raise their families. You're listening to My Warm Table podcast. My name is Matthew Quomi. And my conversation with Sonia is all about the history of Electric Power Transmission.
Sonia Nolan:Matthew, I'm so enjoying our Tavola Calda conversation this morning. And it really is a trip down memory lane for me. And also, you know, we are sitting around the Warm Table here at my home and the lovely sounds of the neighbourhood are also joining a conversation with dogs barking and the guy across the road deciding to start the lawn mower. But it all sort of evokes a time and place. And I want to take us back to the 1970s and what was happening for EPT, in that time.
Matthew Quomi:EPT was very busy building transmission lines on the East Coast. There was some diversification into Southeast Asia. But then world events.
Sonia Nolan:When you say diversification of just Southeast Asia, where do you mean?
Matthew Quomi:New Zealand, Vietnam, Thailand.
Sonia Nolan:Did they ever go to Port Moresby?
Matthew Quomi:Lots of work in Papua New Guinea.
Sonia Nolan:Yeah because I'm sure my dad talked about Port Moresby and being there.
Matthew Quomi:They spent a lot of time working in Papua New Guinea. Yeah, Sergio Bazoni from Queensland was the main character involved in those projects.
Sonia Nolan:And so 1970s, so they diversified across the region, if you like.
Matthew Quomi:With a presence almost in every every state. But world events changed they were offered more opportunities for the future, the energy crisis being a big one.
Sonia Nolan:So tell me about the energy crisis of the 70s.
Matthew Quomi:So that resulted in a run of power station construction all across the country and EPT having very big fabrication workshops were was ideally situated to take to take advantage of that. In Western Australia, the issue was even more acute being isolated from the rest of the country and not being connected to the national grid. The state had to add to generate and distribute all the time all its electricity. So one of the first initiatives was to extend the Muja power station in Collie, where the coal fields are. So EPT won numerous contracts there for fabrication and erection of Palestration structural steel and rows and then resulting from this new generating plant, new power lines were acquired. So EPT won the contract to construct a 330 KV power line from Muja to Northern terminal. But also at the same time, the government realised that they needed to do more than this. And Woodside was already doing exploration up in the Pilbara for oil and gas. And this period of time coincided with the beginning of the Northwest shelf.
Sonia Nolan:So that's a significant time in Western Australia's development, industrial development, I should say. And so Northwest shelf with Woodside being involved in that. Yeah, back in the 1970s. Okay, so EPT had a story there too.
Matthew Quomi:Yes. So the, it was a huge deal to put together to come up with something that was financially viable, being so far from Perth, and in such an isolated place. How was Woodside going to make this work. So it all what made it come together was an agreement to sell, to sell gas to to Japan. That was able to underwrite the whole project. So that was broken up into two stages. The first stage was a domestic supply of gas to Perth. So there was a huge pipeline built from Karratha to south of Perth, and that probably really underpinned Western Australia's ability to generate enough energy for itself.
Sonia Nolan:I think that was underwritten by Alcoa wasn't it? The pipeline.
Matthew Quomi:It went to Alcoa, yes.
Sonia Nolan:It went to Alcoa.
Matthew Quomi:But for such a long pipeline in traversing isolated landscape it needed to be controlled. So there was a series of, of guyed mast towers built along the line and EPT won the contract to fabricate and erect those towers. The Northwest shelf was a turning point in the Australian construction industry. In terms of welding, standards, safety standards, it really changed the future of construction in Australia, there was a meeting organised in Perth, towards the late 70s, where the local contractors were invited to come to this talk. And though it was explained that, yes they might have the capability to do welding and fabrication, but this was a completely different, different project, they would need to team with experienced contractors from overseas who already done this work before there was carried a lot of cryogenic work, types of welding that had never been done in Australia. So when the LNG plant kicked off, there were two, what they call trains. And for local contractors to be involved, they had to partner with experienced firms from overseas. At the time, Italy had a long history of, of this type of work. Saipem was one of the companies that have built pipelines and built oil rigs, had done all these type of projects around the world. And another one was based in Bologna was called Focky. So EPT formed a joint venture with Focky to build one of the trains for the LNG plant. And that was a huge project. And, and that was another market that that EPT branched out into.
Sonia Nolan:So diverse, this company was so diverse and the skills of these men was just so expansive wasn't it? Yeah, incredible. So the 1970s heralded the real - not the start, but the embedding and consolidation of a lot of these industries as yeah, this is definitely where Western Australia's future lies, you know, so let's put in this infrastructure. Let's explore these vast areas and, and industry was really thriving, as it was setting up in those days. Yeah.
Matthew Quomi:And the industry was maturing, there was a consciousness of about safety, which didn't exist before. Definitely. And I think EPT got caught up in this change a little bit. They didn't embrace the change. To the extent that I think they should have. Talking about this decades, these two decades the 70s and 80s where all these huge power stations were built. And obviously from that there was a run of transmission lines, and EPT built, the majority of them. But
Sonia Nolan:But let's just cast our mind back then to the legacy by the time it comes to drawing towards the late 1980s, there were no transmission lines that needed to be built anymore. EPT started to find itself in in trouble, they had this huge, highly qualified and loyal workforce that they were finding, which was difficult to service now, because there just wasn't the work there. And very quickly, the company found itself in trouble. We have to remember that it was a subsidiary of a, of a multinational, with headquarters in Milan, but for financial reasons based in Switzerland, decisions made in Europe impacted and what happened in Australia, the order book dropped overnight, the amount of work that was coming in was vastly reduced. And one year the company made a huge loss. So looking at the company from Italy and thinking, "well, what are we going to do here, there's not not that many power lines to be built anymore. We have other operations around the world, we've done well out of this company." And slowly the decision was made to shut down the company. The profit made, the parts of the company that were making money remained. But this huge workforce was dismantled. Many men were forced into retirement prematurely. They weren't ready to retire. They loved their job. Many of them got left behind. A lot of the camps were used for rehabilitation for single men that didn't have a home to go to. And when these, these camps were closed down, they had it did leave. So across Australia it left the legacy of nowhere to go. It's quite- it's a very sad period in the company's history. the telecommunications tower joining this vast, remarkable harsh landscape all the way from, you know, the New South Wales coast, if you like, all the way across up to Western Australia and to Hamersley and the Northwest Shelf. So right joining this country, from a telecommunications aspect, in all senses from TV, so when the advent of television and the advent of microwave from broadband, so, you know, EPT's got its little DNA, peppered all across the landscape in that. And then diversifying into building grain silos and blast furnaces and creating the industry that we know here in Western Australia through a lot of the companies that we still know and are going strong, like Alcoa and BP and Hamersley Iron Ore, and the Muja power station, which, you know, as I said earlier, is about to go into this next phase of transformation for power and electricity. That's right, we wouldn't, we would be taking it
Matthew Quomi:And now we're seeing a new run of transmission lines being built in Australia. And you look at the next, EPT missed out on the mobile phone, tower network. We're talking for granted. Yeah. So that leads me to the the obvious question about wind turbines now, EPT had the expertise to diversify in those those markets, and it's a question of, you know, what might have been? But it was a great story while last. So I think if we're still around today we wouldn't be talking here. then Matthew, what has inspired you to capture the history and to speak, you know, sit at the Tavola Calda of many EPT Alumni, if you like, and hear their stories, what underpins your inspiration? I'm an architect, and a few years ago I was going back into my memory wondering about why I chose that line of work. And I remember as a child growing up hearing EPT all the time and wondering what that meant. So just out of curiosity, I started trying to find information about the company. And to my surprise, I couldn't find anything. I thought that was really strange. It was such a big company. And that was my impression of it from my childhood memories. And I thought this is very strange that I can't find anything. So that's where the search began. And I found someone who worked for the company and asked if I could come and talk to him about it. He said, "Yeah, sure. What do you want? What would you like to know?" And I said, "I don't know."
Sonia Nolan:Yeah, that's right. I don't know what I don't know.
Matthew Quomi:And so I went and I saw this, this gentleman and he pulled out a shoebox of black and white photographs with transmission line towers. And he gave me the number of someone else and they show me their photos and, and slowly, slowly this story gathered momentum until the point where I thought this story needs to be documented. And so now I've travelled all around Australia, trying to find these people to try and document their stories, trying to preserve the history of EPT. There's people in every state they, despite the company closing, the friendships have endured, there were reunions on the on the East Coast, people still get together for lunch in Fremantle. They're still great friends, and they love reminiscing about those times together.
Sonia Nolan:So Matthew, you writing a book about a EPT, with all of the history and all of the stories and times that you've spent in state libraries and archives and you know, trying to unravel all of the history, piecing it all together? Hows the book coming along?
Matthew Quomi:Slowly coming. Getting there. It's been very hard to find information, especially about the beginning of the company. So it's been a lot of it has involved talking to people and saying, "What do you remember, from this time?" and then talking to someone else, and seeing how those stories align, because we're talking about events that happened 70 years ago.
Sonia Nolan:Yeah a long time ago.
Matthew Quomi:The founders are long gone from the company. And so slowly, slowly, the story's coming into existence, I think along for a long time, I didn't know if I'd be able to find all the information. But now I'm well along the path. And eventually, I will publish a book about the history of EPT where I put all these stories together.
Sonia Nolan:That's wonderful. I'm just very sad that, you know, my papa wasn't around to tell you his stories, because, gosh, he would have loved to have met you Matthew and who shared well, many glasses of red wine, I suspect, maybe on his part, to tell you the stories of EPT because he definitely was one of those loyal, hard working men who loved the company, just loved it.
Matthew Quomi:And people have told me that he's earnt his place in there. So that's, that's what's gonna happen. He's already in that.
Sonia Nolan:Can't wait to read it. I can't wait to read it.
Matthew Quomi:And so has everyone knows, everyone that I've spoken to they've, I try and find their place in the story where they really shine. And so I want to mention as many people as possible, because they're the people that built this company. Thanks to them, we have this great story. I was too young to remember any of this. My father stopped working for EPT after my birth, so I didn't grow up with it, like you did, being able to go to the camp. But it's had a huge influence on my life regardless.
Sonia Nolan:And it's had a huge influence on Australia. Certainly a story with capturing and for us all to read and acknowledge this. Matthew, I have so enjoyed our Tavola Calda Thank you, Sonia. It's my pleasure. Warm Table conversation today, you've, you know, evoked so many memories from my childhood, you've, you know, sort of coloured in the landscape of some of my father's work and his DNA, which is in the DNA of so much of Western Australia. I started getting emotional, I'm going end being emotional. What you're capturing is significant for Western Australia, it's significant for Australia and, and for so many migrants. So I just want to say thank you for, for taking the time, because this is of your own time, you're certainly not getting paid for the work and research you're getting, maybe you're getting paid in calories with all the beautiful food that you're enjoying around the table ecology. But yeah, Matthew, thank you so much for joining me and for reaching out to me those Thanks for joining me, Sonia Nolan around the Warm Table. years ago to connect the story of my family. Let's grow the community. Please follow My Warm Table podcast on socials and like and share this episode with your family and friends. My Warm Table is brought to you by Females Over 45 Fitness. Keep listening now for a health tip from FOFF Head Coach Kelli Reilly.
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