John Furphy Memorial Lecture
Past lectures
2010: The Dethridge wheel - 100 years of faithful revolution
Presented by Peter Fitzgerald
From channels to the main streets of country towns, since 1910 the Dethridge wheel has become a symbol of irrigated agriculture across Northern Victoria. Peter shared his insights from both sides of the Dethridge wheel as he explored its history, from early designs to its modern role in our region. Peter is a local irrigator and dairy farmer. A former water bailiff, he has also been involved representing irrigators on Goulburn-Murray Water's customer committees, and as a Director of Goulburn-Murray Water and the Goulburn-Broken Catchment Management Authority.
Slideshow (PDF 3MB)
Slideshow notes (DOC 67KB)
2009: The survival of journalism in regional Australia in the face of corporate media organisations
Presented by Heather Ewart, Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Heather initiated a discussion of the future of regional newspapers and the newspaper industry. Her lecture explore the changing nature of media reporting, and asked whether political spin has taken over and sanitised what we read and see.
2008: From well to water tank
Presented by Dr Kate Auty (PhD, MEnvSc., BA (hons)/LLB)
Dr Auty discussed the way water has been collected and used in Australia from colonisation, across a range of cultural and personalised usages and geographical sites. She detailed how Aboriginal people used water along the Canning Stock Route, and illustrated the engineered storage along the route. These Aboriginal reserves were used by non-Aboriginal people.
Dr Auty has worked as a magistrate in Western Australia and Victoria. She was the inaugural Koori Court Magistrate in Shepparton when she was the Regional Coordinating Magistrate. Kate is currently the Chairperson of the Victorian Ministerial Reference Council on Climate Change Adaptation.
2007: Troubled waters - an illustrated history of Victoria's fight for water
Presented by Dr Geoff Russell
Geoff has taught history at La Trobe (Bendigo and Shepparton campuses), and professional writing and editing, and business management at Bendigo Regional Institute of TAFE. He has operated two highly successful multimedia production businesses in central Victoria, and worked for many years as a broadcast journalist with various commercial TV networks. He currently works as a research officer with the Joint Committees of the Parliament of Victoria, and is adapting his PhD thesis 'Water for Gold' for publication as a new history of the fight to secure water to the central Victorian goldfields.
