7. Infrastructure Provision for a New Nation

Looking back at the nineteenth century, over the long run, it was the combination of technological developments that took place during that period together with a variety of geographic and economic factors present in an emerging society that were influential in promoting the creation of government enterprises amongst the network utility industries of water supply, rail, post, and the telegraph in the Australian colonies. The creation of publicly owned network utilities—primarily by colonial governments, though also in some instances local governments—enjoyed a broad political consensus. Yet, this support does not appear to have been based on any strong aversion to provision of services by private enterprise. Rather it was founded on a desire to speed up the construction of infrastructure and the delivery of services, so as to improve the quality of life as well as encourage the economic development of Australia, particularly in regional areas, and also to link those regions more strongly with the capital cities.