Politicians, academics and commentators are once again talking about the need for governments to intervene in significant ways to provide for the security of our water supply or to provide sustainable, clean energy. Achieving these goals is increasingly regarded by large parts of the electorate as essential for our national survival. Furthermore, it can be argued that such goals are, at present, far beyond the capability and capacity of the market to achieve on its own.
John Howard, in a 2001 address to the Centenary Conference of the Institute of Public Administration, acknowledged a nation-building past when he lauded:
[t]he great national issues of the past century — the turning of the dream of Federation into reality, post war reconstruction and repatriation, the peaceful settlement of millions of migrants, the vast nation-building projects like the Snowy and our rail and road networks to name just a few…[6]
As the leader of a government with, at the time, avowed ‘small government’ credentials, the Prime Minister’s remarks fell short of acknowledging a nation-building future. The nation, now ‘built’, needed only ongoing maintenance.
By 2005, however, the Howard government appeared to have re-discovered nation-building as a policy framework. For instance, John Howard, in an interview on Channel Seven’s Sunrise program, portrayed the Darwin to Alice Springs railway as an exercise in contemporary nation-building.[7] Built as a public private partnership with $1.3 billion in financial assistance from the Commonwealth, Northern Territory and South Australian governments, the line is the fruition of a promise first made by the Commonwealth in 1911.[8] The press, however, characterised the Commonwealth’s $191 million contribution to the railway (opened by the Prime Minister in January 2004) as an attempt to shore up beleaguered conservative governments in the Territory and South Australia: nation-building lite, perhaps.[9]
Despite misgivings about the economic rationale for the Alice to Darwin link, it has proved popular with the public — it has even been dubbed ‘the Steel Snowy’ in an evocation of the nation-building spirit.[10] Indeed, a strong residual public affection for some of Australia’s more iconic nation-building projects was demonstrated when in 2006 a public outcry over plans by the Commonwealth to divest itself of the government’s remaining shares in Snowy Hydro resulted in the Commonwealth reversing its decision.[11] This reversal, according to the Prime Minister, reflected a recognition of the ‘overwhelming feeling in the community that the Snowy is an icon. It’s part of the great saga of post-World War II development in Australia.’[12]
In part, the Snowy Hydro story suggests a degree of ‘privatisation fatigue’ in the community and a degree of public unease about the transfer of public assets into private hands under the pretext of improving efficiency and promoting ‘choice’. It may also signal a revival of a belief in the potential of government to use its legislative and financial muscle to meet the challenge of national survival.
Both the Alice to Darwin Railway and the reversal of the Snowy Hydro privatisation demonstrate that nation-building is inextricably linked to the political currents of the day. For that matter, recourse to the rhetoric and symbolism of nation-building is a natural and useful response in the face of internal and exogenous political threats.