This is how it's done...

This has the look of hard yakker. An old chap is on a machine which looks to be manually operated for the linear movement and the vertical moves. There is a series of photos showing him and the machine upright then in a deep bend pressing the handles down. There is a row of narrow-gauge needles which are pressed into the ground and a small electric motor on the top. The thing is, what is he doing? Under sowing is my guess but maybe aerating? As usual, this sort of stuff seems most often to have been done by the older chaps. Probably has to do with retired blokes having the time, the patience and, in those days, the ability to get on with manual work. We think the photo was taken around autumn 1985. Probably the bowling green at Rotowaro - does anyone know the chap?

Edit: Thanks to a lovely newspaper reader, we now know the gentlemen's name is Albert Gracie, who was a retired carpenter from State Mines.