The term ‘white elephant’ is one of those figures of speech which is almost always used by people unaware of its origins. It comes from a story told about the ancient Empire of Siam. There, albino elephants, because of their rarity and striking appearance, were considered sacred. They were symbols of the Emperor’s power and semi-divine nature. One emperor devised an ingenious way to punish any courtier who annoyed him: he would present the man with one of the sacred imperial white elephants. The gift could not possibly be refused, nor could it be given to anyone else. And the Emperor knew that keeping the elephant in the magnificent style which custom demanded would financially ruin even the wealthiest of nobles.[5] Thus a ‘white elephant’ is any magnificent, high-status possession that is not particularly productive, costs a lot to maintain, and which you cannot get rid of.
Since colonial times, Australians have been suckers for white elephants. We ran up massive debts to fund the construction of railways, dams and bridges, schemes that were often motivated more by status than economy. Edward Shann, best remembered for his classic economic history of Australia published in 1930, was scathing of this tendency. ‘They were building,’ he said, ‘in haste and on credit, the nineteenth century equivalent of city walls.’[6]
In 2007, I was commissioned to write the text of the book which would accompany the ABC TV documentary series Constructing Australia, which told the story of three great Australian engineering projects: the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Kalgoorlie Pipeline, and the Overland Telegraph.[7] Throughout, I tried to keep some perspective, and make the story more than a celebration of Aussie ingenuity. I emphasised, for example, that the Sydney Harbour Bridge was a genuinely debatable proposition.
To criticise the Bridge now seems like shooting Skippy: unthinkable, if not un-Australian. The Bridge is our most distinctive man-made icon, the centre-piece of many a fireworks display and Qantas advertisement. If the Bridge had not been built, it would have retarded the development of Sydney; and perhaps that would not be such a bad thing. Had the Bridge not been built, perhaps Sydney today would be a smaller and more liveable city. Maybe other capital cities and other centres in New South Wales would be larger, our economy, government and culture less centralised. It is, at least, a question worth raising.
Unfortunately, I did not have the space to express my reservations about the Australia’s single most iconic symbol of nation building: the Snowy Mountain Scheme.