The Snowy Mountains Scheme is the largest engineering project ever completed in Australia. Furthermore it is one of the largest and complex hydro-electric systems on the planet. It is a defining moment in Australian history and helped shape the Australian identity as multicultural, independent and capable, further shifting from their previously British underlined past. This day resembles the official opening date of the Snowy Mountains Scheme, however construction was still apparent 2 years beyond this date.
The Snowy Mountains Scheme contains 16 major dams, 7 power stations, a pumping station and 225 kilometres of tunnels, pipelines and aqueducts. The objective of the scheme is to collect water from the rain and melting snow in the Snowy Mountains area. This water is then funnelled through the power stations and creates a powerful hydro-electric source of electricity. This water is then transferred down into the Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers to add an additional value of a drought backup plan for farmers within regional New South Wales and Victoria.
Construction on the Snowy Mountains Scheme begun in 1949 and was completed in 1974, taking 25 years to complete. That made the scheme the largest renewable
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This made an undeniable contribution to the multicultural efforts within Australia, with a large proportion of these labour migrants having Italian, German and Greek roots. Grahamme Griffin states, “after learning how to become 'New Australians', the workers quietly slipped into the wider community. There, having paid their dues and undergone their rites of passage, they could find acceptance and assimilation within the larger population.”2 Australia's policy for multiculturalism at the time being assimilation, rather than acculturation that is apparent