Category: History and Heritage

The people and the places

Never underestimate the role of men in amplifying feminism

Image credit Sylvia Liber

I am deep in the late 1800s for my novel, working through co-operative records, newspapers, council minutes, and the small details that tell you how people actually lived. The book is a historical novel set in a dairy valley on the NSW South Coast at the turn of the twentieth century. The further I go, the more familiar the patterns feel.

I grew up a sixth-generation dairy farmer. By the time I came along, technology was everywhere on the farm. The cows were unimpressed. They still needed milking 365 days a year, twice a day, sometimes three. The machines changed. The stories stayed.

My mother milked cows before and after school. Her mother did the same. I noticed how normal it all sounded.

My father had one rule. “Never ever ever learn to milk a cow.” He wasn’t joking. He made it clear to my sister and me that our younger brother would inherit the farm. There would be nothing for us to inherit. That rule came from his mother, who hated milking cows and moved heaven and earth to make sure her daughter had an education. He carried that lesson forward. That advice probably did more for my feminism than any book I read later.

My father’s logic belonged to the nineteenth century. Sons inherited. Daughters adjusted. It is now very outdated, and it deserves to be named as such.

My father is gone. My brother sold the farm. The logic did not survive either.

That family arrangement was not unusual. It sits squarely inside what the historical record shows.

The Illawarra co-operative story is usually told through factories, boards, and balance sheets. What sits underneath it is work done by whole families, organised around necessity rather than choice, as documented in Illawarra Co-operatives: The First One Hundred Years (University of Wollongong, 2014).

Most dairy farms in the late nineteenth century were small, around 30 to 60 hectares. Life for men, women, and children was exhausting and relentless, shaped by weather, seasons, and livestock. Every day, a family spent about four hours milking an average herd of thirty cows. There were no days off.

Men’s labour was constant and physical. They cleared land, fenced paddocks, planted and harvested feed, cared for stock, maintained buildings, and carted milk and butter to market over poor roads and long distances. Their work was visible.

Women’s labour ran alongside this. Women ran households, cooked and cleaned, bore and raised large families, drove herds, milked twice a day, sterilised equipment, tended poultry, pigs, and gardens, and rose as early as 2am in summer to prepare butter for market. In poorer families, women took on heavier outdoor work as well.

Children worked before and after school, when school was possible at all. At Kiama Public School, the timetable was adjusted to fit around milking. Education bent to agriculture, not the other way around.

Butter making was slow and physically demanding, but it mattered because butter paid the bills. Cream rose when it could. Sometimes it soured. It was still skimmed, ripened, churned by hand, and packed for market.

This is the pressure co-operation responded to.

From the late 1880s into the 1890s, factories shifted part of this work into shared systems. Separators, refrigeration, and rail transport mattered. So did the effect on daily life. Time pressure eased. Physical exhaustion reduced. Risk moved out of kitchens and sheds and into collective arrangements. The work still depended on women, but it no longer sat entirely on their backs.

Women were never named as founders or directors. Yet the system depended on their labour, endurance, and availability. Co-operation did not remove women’s work. It reorganised it.

This is where Joseph Weston enters the story.

As editor and proprietor of the Kiama Independent, Weston used the newspaper to argue for co-operation as a response to how work was actually being carried out in the district. He wrote about structure, not sentiment. He brought labour that had been treated as private into public discussion and made it part of the economic conversation.  After this much time in his columns, I have developed an entirely unreasonable fondness for him.

Local newspapers did more than report. They shaped what communities thought could change. Weston used the platform he had.

This is not about men granting permission. It is about who had access to the microphone, and what they chose to say into it.

A later layer of visibility comes from historical scholarship. The 2014 history Illawarra Co-operatives: The First One Hundred Years records women’s labour throughout the system. One pattern stands out. Women are named largely in contemporary chapters. In the foundational period, women’s labour is described in detail, but individual women are not identified. The work is present. The names are not.

My work begins there.

My book is relevant now because communities still decide who women are faster than they listen to who they might be. The Illawarra co-operative movement worked because entire families carried it. Some men used their access to make that visible at the time. The task now is to keep it visible.

History of Dairying – From horse and dray to robots in the shed

For much of the last century, dairy farming was shaped by muscle, routine, and ingenuity. Milk did not move easily, and neither did the work. Every change in transport and milking reshaped daily life on farms and quietly transformed the industry.

In the early days, milk left the farm in ten gallon cans, each weighing close to sixty kilograms when full.

Cows were hand milked, usually twice a day, and the milk was strained, cooled as best it could be, and poured into cans.

Image source 

Those cans were loaded onto a horse and dray, or slid down timber milk slides on steep country, then carted to the factory. In wet weather, roads became mud, wheels bogged, and schedules slipped. Strength mattered. So did reliability. Missing a collection was not an option.

As farms grew and roads improved, mechanisation crept in. Hand milking gave way to early machines, powered first by kerosene or small engines, later by electricity. Milking sheds changed shape. Bail sheds replaced open yards, hygiene improved, and consistency lifted. The work was still hard, but it was faster and more predictable.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, significant advancements were made in milking machine technology, with the introduction of vacuum-operated systems that improved milk extraction efficiency and reduced stress on the animals. These early milking machines were typically stationary units that required cows to be brought to the machine for milking.

Transport followed the same path. Horse and dray gave way to trucks, still collecting milk in cans, but covering more ground. Then came one of the biggest shifts of all, bulk milk collection. Instead of lifting cans, milk flowed directly from the vat into a tanker. For farmers, it meant less physical strain and better milk quality. For factories, it meant scale, efficiency, and the ability to plan.

Jamberoo Dairy Factory, mid-20th century.
Milk arrived in many ways at once, by horse and dray from nearby farms, by individual trucks, and by larger trucks collecting milk from multiple properties, marking the transition from horse-powered dairying to mechanised transport.

Bulk tanks on farms changed shed design again. Cooling became immediate and controlled. Milk could be held safely until collection. The daily rhythm altered, but the discipline remained.

Large dairies today often have 20,000 litre milk vats

Today, the shed tells a different story again. Rotary dairies, automatic cup removers, and data screens sit where stools and buckets once did. In some sheds, robotic milking systems allow cows to choose when they are milked. Sensors track yield, health, and feed intake in real time. Transport is integrated into logistics systems that optimise routes and timing.

Rotary Dairy System 

What has not changed is the logic behind every shift. Each step aimed to protect milk quality, reduce risk, and make the work sustainable. The tools look different, but the principles are the same.

Robotic Dairy System 

From horse hooves on muddy tracks to stainless steel tankers and robots in the shed, dairy farming has always adapted. The story of transport and milking is not about nostalgia or novelty. It is about problem solving, step by step, generation by generation.

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Watch how one farm grew their milk business here 


#AustralianDairy #DairyHistory #MilkingSheds #MilkTransport #AgriculturalInnovation #RuralAustralia #DairyFarming #FarmHistory #FromPaddockToFactory

Where history lives and why it still matters

We’ve lived the history.
We’ve written it down.
We’ve carried it forward, or have we?

That question is where my work begins. Through interviews and recordings, I gather and share local history, often uncovering stories people carry without realising their value. When I speak to groups, I start with this moment, a pause, a look around the room, and an invitation to notice what’s already in our care.

I then ask for a show of hands.

Who here is, in some shape or other, a keeper of stories?

For some, it’s a box of photographs.
For others, a folder of papers.
Sometimes it’s a drawer that nobody else is allowed to touch.

That’s where history lives.
And that’s where the opportunity begins.

History lives in people, families, workplaces, and communities. It survives because someone decides it matters. Often it begins with ordinary objects and everyday stories, the things that sit quietly in our lives until time gives them meaning.

One of my favourite examples is this suitcase.

A relative’s family kept their memories in a single suitcase. Over many years, a father filled it with letters, photographs, and papers. When he died, the suitcase passed to his son.

His son understood the suitcase as responsibility. He chose to keep those memories alive and went on to write the history section for his local paper, turning private records into shared memory.

Inside that suitcase were photographs of my own family I had never seen. Faces, places, and moments I recognised in new ways. My history, preserved through someone else’s care.

My parents wedding and a photo of my mother as a 14 year old bridesmaid

That is how continuity works. Memory moves forward because someone chooses to hold it.

Today, we can extend that care into digital spaces. Stories become searchable, shareable, and discoverable. A single record can reach families, researchers, and future generations.

What we choose to document shapes what gets handed down. What we carry forward shapes what endures.

Most of us already hold history in our hands. The question is how we choose to care for it.

From three factories to one co-operative how Jamberoo dairying consolidated by 1926

 

Jamberoo Central Dairy Company built Waughope Butter Factory.
Described in November 1887 via Trove as the most complete butter factory on the South Coast, with innovative milk-receiving and weighing systems handling nearly 1,600 gallons a day from 19 suppliers opening 6 weeks before the Woodstock factory began operating. 

Before Jamberoo became known for a single, strong co-operative factory, the valley lived through a long period of experimentation, competition, and hard lessons.

In the earliest years of dairying, Jamberoo farms were largely self-contained. Milk was separated on farm, butter was made for household use, skim milk fed pigs, and any surplus was carted out by horse and dray. Cream, not milk, was the product that travelled. It was heavy, slow, and vulnerable to spoilage, and prices were unpredictable.

Cream on farm was left to separate in these shallow pans ( Dowling 1888) 

The arrival of butter factories in the late nineteenth century changed everything. Factories offered scale, consistency, and access to wider markets. For Jamberoo farmers, they were not about convenience, they were about survival in an increasingly volatile industry.

For a time, Jamberoo supported three separate dairy factories, each with its own promise and its own problems.

The Jamberoo Central Dairy Company built the Waughope Factory in late 1887, was the earliest and most familiar. It symbolised progress for many local farmers, a move away from purely farm-based production toward factory butter. Over time, Jamberoo Central  became entangled in unstable supply arrangements, including dealings with Fresh Food & Ice and later the collapse of the Farmers’ & Settlers’ Co-operative. By the early 1900s, it was carrying debt, ageing plant, and fragile contracts. Its difficulties showed that longevity alone could not protect a factory from structural weakness. in 1908 it was rebranded as Jamberoo Dairy Factory

The Druewalla Factory was smaller and shorter-lived, but its role was pivotal. Located on Jamberoo Mountain, it was positioned to serve farms on the escarpment and upper country, where steep terrain made hauling milk down into the valley slow, heavy, and costly. In practical terms, its location made sense for those suppliers. Strategically, it did not. Druewalla drew milk from the same finite district as Woodstock and Jamberoo Central, intensifying internal competition rather than strengthening Jamberoo as a whole. When Druewalla closed in 1898, reducing three factories to two, the lesson was clear. Fragmentation carried a cost, and Jamberoo was paying it.

The Woodstock Dairy Factory was the most modern and ambitious of the three. Better equipped and quicker to adopt refrigeration, it demonstrated what investment and scale could achieve. But its success destabilised the local balance. Milk flowed away from weaker factories, accelerating their decline. When Woodstock installed refrigeration in 1899, negotiations with Waughope collapsed. Coexistence was no longer viable.

Woodstock Dairy Factory, Jamberoo. 

Woodstock Factory opened in the 1887, followed by Druewalla in 1891, which
was amalgamated with Woodstock nine years late. By 1903 the Woodstock Factory was supplied by 70 farmers and was equipped with refrigeration, large churns, and capacity that regularly exceeded expectations

By the 1890s and early 1900s, the wider Illawarra dairy industry was under intense pressure. Proprietary companies, agents, separating stations, and co-operatives all competed for control of supply. Farmers were often paid on terms they did not set and bore the risk when milk was condemned or prices fell. Small factories struggled with debt, hygiene standards, and access to markets.

What followed was a slow, sometimes bruising move towards consolidation.

Jamberoo farmers watched neighbouring districts falter and learned quickly that independence without bargaining power left them exposed. Co-operation became not an idealistic choice, but a practical one.

By the early 1900s, Jamberoo was moving towards a single local factory model. Consolidation meant fewer plants, but stronger ones. It meant shared investment in buildings, machinery, refrigeration, and transport. It also meant shared rules, shared standards, and shared accountability.

Timeline

  • 1887: Two competing co-operative factories open within 6 weeks of each other
    → Jamberoo Central also known as Waughope ( Factory Lane formerly Waughope Lane)
    → Woodstock (north, near Curramore Rd)

  • By 1891: Druewalla operates as a smaller plant or receiving point

  • 1898: Druewalla closes
    → first step toward consolidation

  • 1899: Woodstock installs refrigeration
    → negotiations with Waughope fail

  • 1908: The cooperative story consolidates formally under the Jamberoo Co-operative Dairy Company  name

  • 1926: Jamberoo Central and Woodstock merge

The formal reconstruction of the Jamberoo Co-operative Dairy Company in 1908 and its merger with Woodstock Factory in 1926 allowed it to absorb the assets, debts, and hard-won lessons of  Jamberoo Central, Druewalla, and Woodstock. From that point on, Jamberoo spoke to the wider dairy world through one factory, one set of books, and one board.

 Jamberoo had achieved something many districts struggled to do. It had consolidated its local dairy industry into a single co-operative, aligned with wider Illawarra networks but grounded firmly in the valley.

Note in the late 1880s in Jamberoo were a period of experimentation and competition, with factories opening within months of each other, technology evolving fast, and records being kept for different purposes. Information for this post was accessed from Milk for the Metropolis by Jan Todd,  W Boxsell’s History of Jamberoo Cooperative Dairy Factory and other sources including Bluehaven by W A Bailey, and the Kiama Independent. 

#JamberooHistory #DairyHistory #IllawarraDairying #CooperativeMovement #AustralianAgriculture #RuralHistory #CommunityEnterprise #MilkAndButter #FarmersWorkingTogether #JamberooDairy #AgriculturalInnovation #SharedRiskSharedReward

 

How the dairy wars turned inward and somehow worked themselves out

We ask people to buy Australian to support farmers, while farming itself depends on a world far beyond our shores. Image source unknown

For decades, the Australian dairy industry knew exactly who the enemy was. Margarine. Yellow, slippery, and forever pretending it belonged on the same plate as butter. Farmers, factories, and marketers were united. Then deregulation arrived in 2000 and, with impressive efficiency, we stopped fighting margarine and started fighting each other.

Overnight, Victorian milk could flow straight into the New South Wales market. The theory was competition would make everyone better. For those of us at the coal face, the reality was messier. Deregulation was followed by ten years of drought, which felt less like reform and more like endurance training.

Much of this story is told best by Geoff Boxsell, who lived it from inside the industry and later recounted it in an amusing speech to Probus in 2003. With impeccable timing, Geoff described how we went from battling margarine to waging war on ourselves, explaining complex industry shifts with humour, clarity, and more than a few knowing laughs from the room. It is the kind of storytelling that only works when the speaker has earned the right to tell it.

At the centre of it all was DAIRY FARMERS COOPERATIVE  It was the second largest dairy co-operative in Australia, farmer owned and powerful. That is very different from dairy farmers, the people milking cows every day. When DAIRY FARMERS was sold in the late 2000s to National Foods, the co-operative disappeared. What remained were brands, and even those did not stay together for long.

National Foods, a Japanese owned company, sold off the Dairy Farmers brands, including white milk, to other processors.  The result was a dairy shell game. Brands moved, ownership blurred, and consumers were left squinting at cartons trying to work out who was behind the milk. Canadian owned players entered the market as well, just to keep things interesting. See note at the bottom that does its best to explain the confusion.

Then consumers pushed back. NSW shoppers wanted milk produced in New South Wales. That preference mattered. Victorian dairy companies were forced to move into NSW, to process milk here and source milk here, so they could truthfully say their milk came from NSW.

And just like that, the marketplace opened up again. In our region, several companies began offering farmers different supply options. Choice returned. Competition followed. Milk companies now had to compete on price, contracts, incentives, and relationships, not just brand recognition. After years of consolidation, the power pendulum swung back towards farmers.

And here is the quiet punchline. Mrs Jones, the fictional character from the old margarine ads, once assured Australians they deserved choice. She was not kidding.

From a farmer’s perspective, there was one unexpected bonus. Productivity lifted dramatically. Cows today produce three to eight times the milk they did fifty years ago. In 1975, Jamberoo had 74 dairy farms. Today, there are nine. Those nine farms produce the same amount of milk, about 20 million litres a year, as the entire valley did in 1975.

BUT this story does not end with choice returning to the farm gate.
What followed was another battle entirely. Once farmers regained options and consumers exercised their voice, both groups found themselves up against a far more powerful force, the supermarkets. In this series of posts I wrote in 2013,  I looked at how dairy farmers and consumers went to war with the major retailers, particularly Coles, how the balance of power in the supply chain tipped again, and what happened when suppliers finally began to speak out. It is a story of intimidation, courage, and the slow unravelling of a system that had gone too far, and it starts with a Background Briefing investigation that still sends shudders down my spine.

So where does that leave us now? With a simple message that cuts through the noise.

Buy milk. Buy dairy products. By doing so, you support the Australian dairy industry.

Some processed dairy products, excluding fresh white milk, come from New Zealand, but the overwhelming majority of dairy products sold here are produced on Australian dairy farms.

The war with margarine fizzled out, the industry survived a family feud, and Australian dairy is still here, filling fridges and keeping regional communities alive.

A very short timeline that explains the confusion 🤔- I was at the coal face and I am very confused

  • 2007
    National Foods is acquired by Kirin, a Japanese beverage and food company.

  • 2008
    National Foods (owned by Kirin) buys DAIRY FARMERS, then the second largest dairy co-operative in Australia.
    This ends DAIRY FARMERS as a farmer-owned co-operative.

  • 2008–2009 ACCC conditions
    To allow the purchase, the ACCC required National Foods to sell off other dairy brands and assets so it would not hold too much market power.
    Brands such as Ski yoghurt and other assets were divested and ended up with different companies.

  • 2009
    Kirin merges National Foods with its Australian alcohol and dairy business Lion Nathan, creating Lion Nathan National Foods, later known as Lion Dairy & Drinks.
    Some Dairy Farmers brands still sit inside Lion.

  • 2010s
    Dairy Farmers branding is split, licensed, sold, or used across different regions and products.
    Brand ownership, milk sourcing, and processing locations no longer neatly align.

  • 2020
    Bega Cheese acquires Lion Dairy & Drinks, bringing Dairy Farmers brands owned by Lion back under Australian listed ownership, though no longer as a co-operative and with a complex shareholder base.

Bottom line:
Between Kirin, National Foods, Lion, ACCC-mandated divestments, brand sell-offs, and later acquisition by Bega, the ownership trail became almost impossible for consumers to follow. That confusion is not accidental, it is the legacy of consolidation, competition law, and global capital moving through what used to be farmer-owned institutions.

BTW If anyone with more expertise than me knows something that should be tweaked in this story feel free to leave a comment. 

#AustralianDairy #DairyDeregulation #SupportAussieFarmers #MilkIndustry #DairyFarmers #NSWDairy #FoodSupplyChain #AgricultureAustralia #BuyAustralian #FarmGateToFridge #RuralCommunities #AustralianFarming #SupermarketPower #ColesAndWoolworths

Condensed milk, skim powder, and the innovators behind Jamberoo’s world class dairy cooperative

Teamwork makes the dream work, right? This photo proves it. Everything the Jamberoo Co-operative Dairy Society achieved came from people working together, sharing responsibility, and holding the same high standard. The awards tell part of the story, the teamwork tells the rest.

This post is part of a series honouring the people behind the extraordinary innovation at Jamberoo Dairy Factory in the 1960’s and 70’s You can find the series here

Back row: Ron Oke, Keith Trapp, Mick Tate, Carol McIntrye, Betty Chttick, Marea Walsh, John Parker, Dennis Brennan, Sid Reeves. Middle Row Joe Smith, Bill Ryan, Kevin Richardson, Geoff Boxsell, Wal Boxsell, Steve Dare, Vaughn Fleming, Bill Fredericks, Sandy Rutledge. Front Row: Bruce Oke, Darky Hogan, Ron Parker, Paul Brennan

The Jamberoo Cooperative Dairy Factory produced world class dairy products. Day in, day out, twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.

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In 1976 Jamberoo Dairy Factory won the Supreme Champion Dairy product in Australia with a box of their butter. In these pictures are Geoff Boxsell now aged 86 with the trophy, the box 25 kgs of Jamberoo Butter was packed in for transport and Steve Dare and Russell Fredericks unloading the butter 

That standard came from people who understood milk, machinery, and risk, and who trusted one another to keep improving the system they were part of. Today’s story shares how that happened, through condensed milk, skim milk powder, and the network of innovators whose judgement and care delivered premium product as the baseline, never the exception.

Kevin Richardson is clear about why these processes mattered. Fresh milk is mostly water, around 87 per cent. The challenge for dairy factories was simple to describe and not so easy to master: how do you remove water without losing food value or quality?

Condensed milk was a high value option. By carefully evaporating water and, in the case of sweetened condensed milk, adding sugar as a preservative, Jamberoo could turn roughly 4.7 kilograms of milk into about 1.76 kilograms of condensed milk. The benefit was obvious. Condensed milk could be stored without refrigeration and transported long distances. It stabilised production, protected quality, and reduced risk during warm periods.

Ron Parker worked in condensed operations  

Getting that process right depended on control. Kevin explains that consistency was everything. Heat, vacuum, and timing had to be managed precisely, or a batch would be lost.

That is why Dennis Brennan’s innovation mattered so much. By working out how to run condensed milk production as a continuous process, rather than stopping and starting in batches, Dennis kept product moving and quality reliable.

Later, Dennis worked with Kevin Richardson and Ian Boxsell on something that still makes Kevin smile when he tells it. Instead of operators standing around doing long calculations by hand, they created a simple computer program. Push a button, and it told you exactly how much sugar, fat, and solids were needed for that batch. No guesswork. No crossed fingers. Just consistency, locked in, years before computerised batching became standard practice. (BTW the program was developed on a Commodore 64)

Skim milk powder solved a different but equally important problem. When whole milk was separated, cream went to butter making and skim milk remained. By evaporating water and drying it, Jamberoo could turn about 4.8 kilograms of skim milk into 450 grams of powder.

Ron Oak was the skim milk power guru

As skim powder could be stored for long periods and surplus milk stopped being a liability and became security against seasonal swings and market shocks. It also meant the factory could absorb milk when others could not.

This is where connections mattered. One of those connections was Bruce Parker, a Jamberoo local who went on to manage the Dairy Farmers Wollongong factory. Dairy Farmers was the largest cooperative in New South Wales and one of the biggest in Australia. When its Wollongong plant was directed to handle all Christmas cream production, it was left with a skim milk problem it could not manage.

Bruce knew Jamberoo’s capacity. He reached out, and Jamberoo absorbed the surplus skim because it already had the evaporators, powder plant, storage, and people to keep everything moving. A small cooperative solved a big problem simply by being prepared.

None of this worked unless milk arrived cleanly and efficiently. Kevin explains why intake systems were critical. Milk arrived in ten-gallon cans, each weighing around fifty to sixty kilograms when full. Repeated lifting was slow, exhausting, and risky.

Wally Boxsell, working with boiler engineer Sandy Rutledge, redesigned the intake system entirely. Conveyors delivered full cans straight to the vat. Empty cans moved automatically through washing, hot rinse, and steam before returning clean to farmers. The system reduced physical strain, lifted hygiene standards, and allowed the factory to handle peak volumes without bottlenecks.

Quality was protected at every stage. Ron Oak and Bill Fredericks kept the powder room running through long shifts and Christmas peaks. Ned Roach, Kevin’s mentor, worked in the test room. Ned taught him to trust his judgement, to hold the line on standards, and to stand his ground when someone interfered with a process they did not fully understand. Ron Parker worked in condensed milk operations. Paul Brennan supported butter and processing work alongside Kevin. Geoff Boxsell backed practical innovation when it made sense on the floor, trusting experience over theory.

Kevin’s message stays consistent throughout. Each process existed for a reason. Remove water, keep nutrition, protect quality, and keep milk moving. What looks technical today was, at the time, sound judgement shaped by people who did the work.

Jamberoo’s success rested on systems, skills, and relationships. Local knowledge travelled. Trust mattered. Networks carried solutions faster than bureaucracy ever could.

Together, these processes created a closed loop system,

A closed loop system means every output has a purpose. Nothing useful is discarded. Materials either stay within the system, are reused in another process, or move to a partner who can use them as input.

At Jamberoo, milk entered the factory and left in multiple forms, butter, condensed milk, skim milk powder, and buttermilk. Water was removed to reduce bulk. Buttermilk flowed to Streets Ice Cream for premium products. Skim milk became powder. Cream became butter. Value circulated rather than leaking away.

Nothing went out as waste. What left the factory did so because it had a use.

In the next post, Kevin explains why what many people think of as “left over” milk was never waste at all, and why those by products were the engine room of the entire dairy system.

#JamberooDairyFactory #JamberooHistory #AustralianDairy #DairyInnovation #CooperativeHistory #RegionalAustralia #FoodManufacturing #ButterMaking #DairyHeritage #AustralianAgriculture #LocalIndustry #FactoryLife #InnovationInAgriculture #TeamworkInAction #FoodSecurity #RuralInnovation #NSWHistory

When the Jamberoo factory was part workplace, part meeting place

The Jamberoo Dairy Factory in the 1960s, when it was both a processing plant and a daily meeting place for farmers across the valley.

This post is part of an ongoing series looking at the Jamberoo Dairy Factory in the 1960s and 70s, when it operated as an innovation hub for the New South Wales dairy industry.

Through photographs, memories, and conversations, I’m trying to capture what that period actually felt like on the ground, the work, the relationships, and the changes that reshaped farming life. Lived experience, at a time when regional factories were driving some of the most significant shifts in the industry.

What follows sits inside that story.

Vaughn Fleming – Milk to market before engines took over.

A full ten gallon milk can could weigh up to 60 kilograms.

That’s about the weight of an average adult human.

In the 21st century a ten gallon milk can on our farm holds nostalgia and umbrellas

By the 50s and 60s, an ordinary Jamberoo farm might arrive with six or eight cans a milking. Six or eight human-weight loads lifted off a truck by hand, morning and afternoon. That effort forced people together in the factory yard.

And while those cans were coming off, people talked.

The yard was busy, loud, familiar. More like a pub than a workplace. Gossip, opinions, news, complaints. Whose cows were milking well. Whose weren’t. Who might be selling up. Who was under pressure. You didn’t need to ask questions. You could see half of it in the number of cans on the tray.

That daily interaction mattered more than anyone probably realised at the time.

Old and new working side by side. Horse and cart alongside motor trucks, showing how change arrived in layers rather than all at once.

Trevor and Leonie Swan hitch a ride to the Jamberoo Dairy Factory.  For many Jamberoo families, dairying was a whole of life enterprise, not a job you left behind at the gate.

Because when milk collection changed, first with co-op trucks and then with bulk tankers from the late 60s, the lifting stopped and the visits to the factory stopped too. By 1970, Jamberoo had full tanker collection and many farmers no longer saw another farmer in the course of their working day.

Farming didn’t suddenly become lonely, it always had that edge. But the small social breaks built into the routine disappeared.

And I remember this clearly, many farmers looked forward to the tanker driver arriving. Yes it was the “money truck” but it was also a chance to talk to someone who wasn’t family. A conversation at the milk vat. A few minutes of human contact in a job that can be long and inward.

So those photos are doing two things at once.

They show us the sheer physical load of dairying, cans that weighed as much as a person. And they show us how that hard work created a social space, one that vanished as efficiency took over.

Once you see that, you understand that progress didn’t just change how milk moved. It changed how farmers connected, and how they coped with the isolation that has always been part of the job.

That’s the story sitting inside those images.

Russell Fredericks tells me his first job at the Jamberoo factory was unloading cans. Before management, before responsibility, before leadership, he started where many did, hands on steel, lifting the weight that kept the place running.

That matters.

Because when you trace this period properly, you see the line running through it. Geoff Boxsell, Kevin Richardson, Russell Fredericks, and the generations of Jamberoo families who passed through that yard, farm kids, apprentices, factory hands, managers. Knowledge moved the same way milk did, person to person, day after day.

The Jamberoo Dairy Factory wasn’t only processing milk in the 60s and 70s. It was training people, shaping judgement, building confidence, and creating pathways for those who could not all stay on the land but still carried farming in their bones.

That’s what an innovation hub looks like when you zoom out.

New products, new systems and a place where hard work, conversation, and opportunity sat side by side, and where one generation prepared the next.

And once you understand that, those photos stop being about the past. They become part of a much longer story that is still unfolding.

Massive shout out to the contributors of the Remembering Jamberoo History Facebook page and families sharing their photos directly with me 

#JamberooHistory #DairyHeritage #AustralianDairy #MilkCans #FarmingLife #RuralAustralia #AgriculturalInnovation #JamberooDairyFactory #IllawarraHistory #RegionalIndustry

The story behind Jamberoo’s butter makers

Steve Dare (L) Butter Maker Guru and his apprentice Russell Fredericks (R)

There is a wonderful moment captured in this photo, taken long before automation took over dairy factories. On the left is Steve Dare, Jamberoo’s master butter maker, a man who could read a churn the way others read a newspaper. Next to him is apprentice Russell Fredericks, paddles ready, learning the craft

You can see the strain in the stance, the weight of the paddles, the deliberate rhythm of easing butter onto the scissor-lift trolley. Even the trolley had to be wound up by hand, inch by inch. Strength, coordination, and care were all part of the job.

Russell went on with Geoff Boxsell to become one of the most influential figures driving change in the NSW dairy industry during the 1970s and 80s.

The local connection runs even deeper. Russell and Geoff Boxsell are cousins, born exactly twelve months apart on Independence Day, living next door to one another and growing up between the dairy factory and the paddocks. Two boys who could wander between houses without crossing a road, who later wandered into the same factory, and who would go on to influence decades of industry innovation.

Butter making was brutally physical. In the photos above Steve and Russell are unloading a full batch of butter from a giant drum churn. A single batch could weigh hundreds of kilograms, and every bit of it had to be coaxed out by hand. There were no hydraulic arms, no automated scrapers, just paddles, teamwork, and strength built over years.

Butter Paddles 

Kevin Richardson later reflected that during peak summer production Jamberoo could be making around ten tonnes of butter a week. Because each block had to be handled multiple times before it reached the freezer, that meant the equivalent of forty tonnes of butter was being lifted, cut, shifted, and shaped by hand.

Winter and summer were two different jobs. In winter, the churn room could be bitterly cold. Butter came out hard and resistant, and cutting it with wooden paddles took enormous wrist strength.

In summer, the problem reversed. Butter softened quickly, so crews often started as early as three in the morning to get a second batch finished before heat made it too soft to handle. Timing was everything, and experience was the difference between success and failure.

Butter changed with temperature, movement, and time. If the churn ran a few minutes too long, the texture shifted. If the room warmed, the butter softened too quickly. The men working here relied on instinct developed over years: listening for the sound of the churn, reading texture by eye, adjusting with a few firm strokes of the paddles.

Factories like Jamberoo were producing butter that would go on to win national awards. That level of quality did not happen by accident. The spotless churn room, the white uniforms, the careful manual work all point to the same thing: this was skilled craft, not a simple production line.

Steve Dare was not only a butter maker, he was the master of the printing and wrapping process. Once a week, he would bring butter out of the freezer and carefully bring it back to the right working temperature. The printing machine was entirely manual, demanding patience and precision. Kevin often remarked that it was a pity there were no photographs of Steve at that machine, because it was one of the most skilled jobs in the factory, and Steve was exceptionally good at it.

This was the world in which Geoff Boxsell and Russell Fredericks learned their trade. It gave them a foundation of practical skill, problem solving, and respect for process that shaped the direction of dairy manufacturing across NSW.

And then, years later, came STUFF.

If Elon Musk had walked through the Jamberoo Co operative Dairy Factory in its working years, he would have been gobsmacked by the system.

In the next story, Kevin Richardson steps back from individual products and explains the thinking that sat underneath everything Jamberoo did. A production system where nothing useful was wasted, every by product had a purpose, and each decision was made with the whole picture in mind. Today we would call it a circular economy. Jamberoo was living it around fifty years before the language caught up.

This was not a single flash of brilliance. It was built by a group of practical innovators who understood milk, machinery, labour, and quality because they worked with them every day. Butter, condensed milk, skim powder, buttermilk, even the handling and washing of cans all formed part of one closed loop.

Kevin’s account shows how that system delivered premium product, held together under pressure, and quietly solved problems that much larger organisations struggled to manage.

The next story is about the system that made everything else possible, and the people who built it.

#Jamberoo #DairyHistory #CircularEconomy #AustralianManufacturing #ButterMakers #LocalInnovation #SkillsAndCraft #NothingWasted #FoodSystems #RegionalExcellence

Understanding heritage, development and relocation

We have  number of beautifully and faithfully restored homes in our region. Some of them like this one were restored by Jose De La Vega in the 80’s and nurtured by their owners since and they don’t need reminding of this hard truth 

“The public enjoys heritage, but the private owner carries the bill.”

This article sits alongside my recent piece on the former Kiama police residence. The issues surrounding a public heritage building on Crown land, subject to an Aboriginal land claim, are very different from the questions that arise when heritage applies to privately owned residential property.

To keep the discussion clear and useful for the community, these topics have been separated. This article looks at heritage from a developer’s perspective, drawing on planning requirements, the Kiama Development Control Plan (DCP) and common industry experience. These insights do not relate to the Police Residence site. They describe how heritage processes operate more broadly in NSW and why conflict often emerges when significance is identified too late.

Five things you need to know

  1. Heritage must be identified early.
    Once a property is bought with no listing in place, it becomes extremely difficult to stop demolition later.

  2. Heritage is more than a single building.
    Streetscapes, context and neighbourhood character often carry as much weight as the building fabric itself.

  3. Maintaining heritage is expensive.
    The community may love a building, but the owner carries the cost, the compliance burden and the responsibility.

  4. Relocation is possible, but rarely simple.
    Engineering, approvals, heritage reports and cost blowouts mean moving a building is often not viable.

  5. Clear communication prevents conflict.
    Uncertainty is what triggers community anxiety. Clear rules, early assessments and honest updates help everyone.

Why timing matters

Heritage significance must be identified before a site is purchased. Once land is bought with no heritage listing in place, and after due diligence and council checks have been completed, it becomes very difficult to later prevent demolition.

“If heritage isn’t protected before a site is purchased, the window has usually closed.”

This is echoed in the Kiama DCP, which requires applicants to understand the heritage character of a site and its surrounds, demonstrate how heritage values have informed their design, and engage specialists when needed. Early clarity benefits owners, developers and the community.

The importance of conservation areas

Heritage Conservation Areas carry weight because they assess not only the building, but the setting, streetscape, visual relationships and surrounding story. This aligns with the DCP’s emphasis on context, which sometimes matters as much as the building fabric itself.

“Heritage is more than a single building, it is the story held by the whole streetscape.”

When heritage character is defined early, conflict drops dramatically. When it isn’t, disagreement becomes almost inevitable.

Council’s role and why incentives matter

If the community wants to absolutely guarantee that a privately owned building survives, government purchase is usually the only certain option.

Short of that, councils can support better outcomes by making retention, adaptive reuse or relocation more feasible. Right now the regulatory pathway is often slow, expensive and unclear, which discourages owners from considering alternatives to demolition.

The DCP requires detailed documentation before relocation is even considered, including:

  • structural and engineering assessments

  • heritage impact statements

  • evidence that significance will survive the move

  • analysis of how the relocated building will sit in its new context

Relocation is possible, but rarely simple.

“Relocation sounds simple, but the approvals, cost and engineering make it anything but.”

Clearer incentives or streamlined processes would make a real difference.

The private burden of heritage

Heritage buildings are admired by many, but the financial burden falls on one: the owner.

“The public enjoys heritage, but the private owner carries the bill.”

Restoration requires specialised trades. Maintenance is ongoing. Grants are limited and rarely cover the true cost. The DCP places strong responsibility on owners to justify changes, maintain fabric and demonstrate that significance is respected.

“Two years ago I read that the NSW Government was going to spend $25 million demolishing the (Finger) wharf. They surely did not want to spend that money. What was needed was a formula to justify the investment.”

…. We won because we put in the time, did the homework and had the team. And we have been passionate about it.” Source 

This mismatch between community expectation and private obligation is one of the drivers of heritage conflict.

“Heritage has many fans, as long as someone else is paying for it.”

Understanding development risk

Development is complex. Even skilled developers carry significant risk, from contamination to infrastructure constraints to changing market conditions. A project that looks viable at purchase can become unworkable once detailed assessments begin.

“Most heritage crises begin as maintenance problems left too long.”

This context helps the community understand why late-stage heritage identification can destabilise a project and fuel community tension.

The role of communication

Clear communication lowers anxiety. Silence does the opposite.

“Silence from government is the fastest way to start a rumour.”

Developers who contributed insights to this article emphasised the importance of keeping dialogue constructive while statutory processes are underway to avoid misunderstandings.

The DCP supports this by requiring transparency, expert evidence and clear demonstration of how heritage considerations shape proposals.

“Clear rules calm communities. Uncertainty fuels conflict.”

Summary

Heritage and development are not adversaries. Both benefit from:

  • early identification of significance

  • clear, consistent planning rules

  • practical pathways for retention, adaptation or relocation

  • communication that builds understanding, not conflict

“Heritage survives when everyone knows their role, not when everyone waits for someone else.”

When the system works well, heritage is protected and development remains viable. When it doesn’t, communities, owners and councils all feel the strain.

Passion is important to de la Vega. “Can you feel the magic of it?” he asks pacing through the structure of the Finger Wharf. “It’s like restoring an old ship. You have to be passionate about it.”

Rider

This article is based on publicly available planning documents, including the Kiama Development Control Plan (DCP) 2020, and general insights shared by several experienced developers to help explain how heritage processes operate in NSW. These discussions were broad in nature and d0 not relate to the former Kiama police residence or any specific development site.

The purpose of this piece is to give the community a clearer understanding of how heritage is assessed, why timing matters, and why conflict often arises when significance is identified later in the planning cycle. All information has been consolidated and interpreted for clarity, with care taken to avoid speculation or commentary on any live development matters.

#KiamaHeritage #HeritageProtection #NSWPlanning #KiamaCouncil #HeritageConservation #DevelopmentAndHeritage #KiamaHistory #BuiltHeritage #CommunityInformation #HeritagePrecinct #UrbanPlanningNSW #HeritageListing #HeritageDebate #HeritageBuildings #KiamaCommunity #AboriginalLandRightsNSW #HeritageEducation #CivicPrecinctKiama #HistoricKiama #PlanningExplainer

Understanding the police residence and why the conversation has become so heated

Sue Eggins what a legend she is. Its time council deliver on their promises. 

In 2011 Sue Eggins stood outside the police residence building every Friday and Saturday with petitions and banners, gathering nearly 700 signatures and even prompting a Minister to visit. Still, nothing happened.

In the past fortnight the future of Kiama’s former police residence has become a flashpoint. People feel anxious, frustrated and unsure who to believe. When clear information is missing, social media fills the gap, and confusion takes over from clarity.

This post brings together the facts that should have been available from the beginning. No speculation, no drama, just the context the community deserves.

What the police residence actually is

Built in 1863, the former police residence on Terralong Street is part of Kiama’s civic heritage precinct. It served as the town’s police station and lock-up until 1884, then became accommodation for officers. It has been empty since 2001 and has deteriorated significantly through decades of inaction.

Two Aboriginal land claims apply to parts of the broader site: one lodged in 2005 and one in 2022. The Illawarra Local Aboriginal Land Council claim has now been agreed.

What Aboriginal land claims actually mean

This is an area of genuine confusion, so here is the simplest explanation.

Aboriginal land claims are made under the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983. They apply only to certain types of Crown land, usually where the land is unused, underused or not needed for public purposes.

An Aboriginal land claim cannot:

  • seize private homes
  • affect people’s yards, farms or businesses
  • interfere with existing freehold titles

Claims are a mechanism to return some Crown land to Aboriginal communities as recognition of historical dispossession. They are lawful, long-standing and routine across NSW.

When a claim is successful, the Local Aboriginal Land Council becomes the landowner. But that does not automatically mean they have the funds to restore a heritage building. Local Aboriginal Land Councils prioritise community welfare, housing, health and cultural programs. Restoring a 160-year-old public building requires additional government partnership, planning and resources.

Understanding this distinction helps separate fear from fact.

How we arrived at this moment

Concern about the police residence isn’t new. For years the Historical Society and many locals have raised the alarm about its deterioration. In 2011 Sue Eggins stood outside the building every Friday and Saturday with petitions and banners, gathering nearly 700 signatures and even prompting a Minister to visit. Still, nothing happened.

A heritage building without a plan becomes a symbol, and people react to that uncertainty. The tension we see now is the predictable outcome of two decades without decisions.

What heritage specialists want people to know

The police residence is listed in Kiama’s Local Environmental Plan. This acknowledges its local significance but does not unlock State heritage funding or specialist support. Attempts to elevate the listing to State level have not succeeded, and that remains a barrier to meaningful restoration.

The building also sits within a civic precinct that has no coordinated heritage strategy. Only the post office holds State heritage status. The courthouse, police station and police residence do not, despite their shared history. Without a precinct approach, each building is left to fend for itself.

Why the conversation feels so charged

People care deeply about this building because it sits at the heart of Kiama’s story. Wanting it protected and interpreted properly is reasonable.

The Aboriginal land claim adds another layer. While returning land recognises history, it does not automatically resolve the cost or responsibility of caring for a heritage structure. Without clear government leadership, the building’s future sits in limbo.

This is not a single-issue problem. It is the result of:

  • long-term neglect
  • unclear responsibility
  • confusing public communication
  • heritage processes that stall without funding
  • and genuine community attachment

What clarity would look like

Right now people are trying to assemble fragments from social media. The facts are simple and should be spoken plainly:

  • The building is historically significant
  • It is in poor condition because of long-term neglect
  • A valid Aboriginal land claim applies, and that does not threaten private homes
  • State heritage listing has not been granted
  • No restoration plan currently exists
  • The community cares, and rightly so

Clear information lowers anxiety. Silence does the opposite.

A better way forward

  • A coordinated heritage precinct strategy.
  • Clear public explanations of how different heritage listings work.
  • Transparency about the building’s structural condition.
  • Collaboration with Aboriginal people on interpretation and future use.
  • Government support that reflects the real cost of restoration
  • Regular communication rather than long gaps

The community wants certainty, respect and clarity. Meeting those expectations begins with telling the truth simply and consistently.

If we want a calmer, more informed conversation about the police residence, this is the foundation we need.

FYI Kiama Heritage DCP

#KiamaPoliceResidence #KiamaHeritage #KiamaHistory #HeritagePrecinctKiama #NSWHeritage #AboriginalLandClaimsNSW #IllawarraHistory #CrownLandNSW #KiamaCouncil #LocalHeritageMatters #HistoricBuildingsNSW #KiamaCommunity #SaveOurHeritage #HeritageRestorationNSW #KiamaLandClaims #UnderstandingLandRights #KiamaLocalNews #TerralongStreetHistory #HistoricPrecinctKiama #PublicBuildingsNSW #CommunityInformation #HeritageEducation #KiamaDiscussion #CivicHeritageKiama