"I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse."   Bredan Behan.

As mentioned in the Rudsdale Report Form of 6/12/90 Baker did arrange and preside over a meeting between the parties at his office to sort out the water pump business. At the meeting Cullum reluctantly, and to Jill Hayward’s horror, conceded that the pump and pipeline were ours but he wanted an extension to the hours he could draw water from the supply. He wanted to be able to take water between 10pm and 6am instead of 12 mid-night and 6am and for an hour between 9am and 10am. Even though Cullum had been plotting and conducting a campaign of fear and loathing against us, I for the sake of peace and not wanting to get offside with Baker agreed to give Cullum the extension he asked for, for the requested period of one week. Cullum said he needed the extension so that he could water his chooks and gardens. That’s what he said but it was another lie.

When the extension ran out a week later Baker phoned me to see if I would grant another extension until the end of January 1991 when the lawyers got back from their holidays. Baker said they needed the extension to water their gardens and stock.

Remember, they were trying to use lawyers to usurp the ownership of our pump and pipeline to deny us our sole water supply even though Cullum had already conceded that we owned it.

During the week of the temporary extension I kept a note of when and for what purpose Cullum took water from our pump between 9am and 10am.

I told Baker that every morning of that week between 9am and 10am they ran the water into their 5000-gallon tank. Only once did they water their gardens and chooks and that was for a total of 15 minutes. And every night at exactly 10pm the supply to our house would stop only to come on again at about 11pm. I doubt that they were watering their gardens or chooks in the dark. We could tell, by the noisy bubbles that occurred, when our water came back on. In other words they wanted the extension solely to deny us water as they already had six hours each night to fill their tank. They couldn’t add water to their tank anymore than the two hours daily because it was already 90% full; Luke checked it.

I told Baker all that and that Cullum had broken the spirit of the agreement and that I wasn’t going to give them any more extensions. This was Bakers reply. (All on tape.)

"Either you do it like that (give the extra extension) or they’ll run the tank (he meant the water) whenever they want to. If you’re not going to be co-operative and let them have that temporary extension they will use the water whenever they want." (Cullum was legally entitled to the water to fill his tank for six hours every night @ 300gallons per hour) "They are asking for an extension to that temporary agreement because of weather conditions, the fact that they have stock and they do not want to cause problems. If you say OK you can only use it between 10 and 6 they are going to use the water outside of that time." (He should have said between 12 and 6.)

Baker hadn’t listened to a word I’d said and continued to try to bully me into doing what he and Cullum wanted. He went on. "You’ve got to look at this logically.  I’m trying to avoid what could possible be a serious incident in which the Police will become involved, people will be arrested. (Me of course) OK I’ll go back to the Cullums and I’ll say that the agreement stands that you use the water between 10 till 6, if you use the water between that time go for it." (The agreement was for between 12 mid-night and 6am.)

I told him he had no authority to give them permission to take water outside the time agreed to. Baker replied, "I have to look at the possibility of stock dying, as an inspector (I thought he was only a Senior Constable) I’m entitled to in that respect if I see that stock are being ill treated. I told Baker he had been misled by the Cullums because their stock water trough was on our pipeline so their stock would have water while we did. Not to mention the creek which ran through the bottom of Cullum’s cow paddock. Again Baker ignored what I told him and he barged on saying, "What I’m trying to get through to you Mr. Van Der Lubbe is that as far as I see it you’re being totally unco-operative. I’m trying to avoid a possible or a potential incident involving you and the Cullums." I said, "Fair enough, you tell them to behave and everything will be OK. I have no intention of creating an incident." Baker replied, "OK I’ll tell them the water goes back to 10 till 6 (he got it wrong again) and if they use the water outside those hours that’s their problem. But if you cut the water off in any situation OK, you will be provoking an incident because the Cullums will be extremely annoyed. They will come over to you, there will be problems and the Police will be called."

You will have deduced that if Cullum cut off our water the rules might be different. So much for Baker’s Police oath to act without fear or favour.

Us, with no water tank and no alternative supply, had no right to “get extremely annoyed and come over to them and cause problems.” Baker then hung up and I said to myself, that guy is a bloody maniac.

In the end Cullum refused to pay his half the power bill and maintenance as agreed, his reason, "Huh, my stock get their water from the creek so why should I pay." What do you do with people like that? It’s illegal to beat sense into them so I cut them off our water supply altogether. They had to get their own pump and pipe line to top up their water tank and fill their one stock trough (a petrol one) there’s brains for you.