The 40" do you mean Ken? As far as I understood it, it was in regularly use on a new mounting. However, as you note, there does seem to be some change afoot!
http://www.milroyobservatory.com.au/ Not sure what is going on!
The 40" served many useful years after 1984, being outfit with early iterations of the modern astronomical CCD. My Dad worked on the instrumentation of it and the 2.3m (principally) for over 15 years from 1985 onwards. I'm not sure what happened to the 24" - it was rarely used after the 1980s. But the ANU telescopes at SSO were certainly in their heyday back then.