Historically, the term ‘nation-building’ in Australia and Canada meant ‘building infrastructure’ (see Vance cited in Infrastructure Canada 2006; Putnis 2002).[5] However, these two countries adopted very different approaches to the nation-building project — differences reflected in their distinct approaches to the practice of federalism today. Watts (cited in Mathews 1982: 13; see also Brown & Bellamy 2006: 12) states that Australia began as a decentralised federation which has since moved toward a ‘centralised coordinative federalism’; in effect a unitary system of government in-waiting. Canada, on the other hand, began highly centralised but has since become ‘largely coordinate and even conflictual in character’. More to the point, Watts (cited in Mathews 1982: 14) suggests that Canada has both strong national communities and provincial communities as a result of competing ‘nation-building’ and ‘province-building’ processes which have occurred concurrently since Confederation in 1867.
The existence of a ‘vibrant French-Canadian component’ in Canada helped establish a ‘heterogeneous federal society’ and competition between national and provincial institutions resulted in political legitimacy ‘oscillating between periods of centralisation and decentralisation’ over time (Watts cited in Mathews 1982: 17). This is in stark contrast to Australia’s trend toward centralisation which has gathered momentum in recent times. The extent of the federal government’s attempts to take control of traditionally state-run policy areas include, for example, public housing (ABC News 2007b), hospitals (ABC News 2007a), industrial relations (Shaw 2006), courts (Attorney-General of Victoria 2007), education (Ferrari 2006), and social policy (AAP Australian Associated Press (AAP) 2007), indicating that Watts’ (cited in Mathews 1982) observations some three decades ago remain extant.
Geography also played a part in the different practices of federalism in Australia and Canada. Australia’s remoteness required a greater focus on communications technologies to overcome the tyranny of distance and cooperation between the dispersed colonies (settled mostly in coastal regions) commenced well before[6] the Overland Telegraph Line was connected with the submarine cable from Java in 1872. At federation, section 51 (v.) of the Australian Constitution gave the federal government legislative responsibility for ‘telegraphic, telephonic, and other like services’. This level of cooperation was peculiar to communications. For example, while the states retained responsibility for railways at federation, the communications network was considered ‘properly a national enterprise’ by all jurisdictions (Putnis 2002: 2). Australia had a national telegraph network connecting it to the rest of the world but it did not have a national, uniform-gauge rail network as a result of railways being deployed independently by colonial governments (Department of Infrastructure 2008). Conversely, Canadian federalism was concerned with connecting communities which formed predominantly along the overland northern border of the United States and focused on ‘railway-building and the expansion of Canadian territory’ (Burgess 1990: 43). Telegraphy, although preceding the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, did not acquire the same level of importance as the railway (Boyce 2000). Indeed, the impetus for confederation was the condition that ‘the Dominion government build a railroad’ to connect the provinces (Velaz 1997: 54). Consequently, Canada’s rail network was transcontinental while provincial governments tended to facilitate local telegraph infrastructure to the north of the transcontinental railway line through local combinations of public, private and community ventures.
The Australian and Canadian experiences of deploying railways and telegraph technologies suggest there are advantages in single solutions for building ‘national’ infrastructure where none exists. Indeed, railways and communications networks were often regarded as conceptually similar because of their concurrent historical deployment. Yet the institutions responsible for communications policy are still grounded in the principles of their early federal predecessors in that Canada’s communications network tends to be developed at the local and regional level while Australia persists with a single national solution.[7] As the convergence of communications technologies is making the railway/telegraph concept less relevant — one might think of modern communications technologies such as broadband as more of an entire transport system rather than simply one element of the system — it is timely that Australia’s nation-building model is reconsidered.
The conceptual separation of transport and communications is a recent phenomenon. The telegraph was largely responsible for the information age and Livingston (Livingston 1996: 6) suggests that telegraphy enabled the separation of transport and communication in a practical sense. Nevertheless, ‘distinguishing communication from transportation’ conceptually in scholarly works mostly occurred in the late 1980s. Indeed, some industry elites still adopt the ‘railway’ concept in discussing broadband deployment, but this concept relates to the ‘carriage’ of data via a ‘line’ rather than the approach to deploying the infrastructure. However, single national solutions were only referred to by Canadian industry elites in their historical context. Diverse policy actors and market players tended to focus on how they serve citizens or customers respectively rather than debating the merits of federal communications policy. Most industry elites spoke of communications policy in terms of simply ‘forbearance’ and it was apparent that greater cooperation exists among policy actors in Canada. In sharp relief to Australian industry elites, most Canadian policy actors were focused on providing solutions to local problems while business people generally discussed market competition issues rather than focusing on problems with the regulatory system.
Australia’s nation-building approach to deploying communications infrastructure was enabled by a collaborative culture resulting from some 50 years of cooperation between the various colonial governments before federation (Putnis 2002). During that time, government distaste for privately owned networks was obvious. For instance, the first privately-owned telegraph network was established in South Australia by James McGeorge, a business owner who ignored the Colonial government’s opposition to privately owned infrastructure (Moyal 1984: 20). Once his network was established, the Colonial government promptly purchased the competing network and simply dismantled it. Government control of telegraphic infrastructure also thwarted Samuel McGowan’s[8] desire to create a business out of the new technology and despite some success as a telegraph construction contractor, he was eventually coerced into becoming ‘general-superintendent of the new electric telegraph in Victoria’ (Moyal 1984: 18). Following federation, the Australian government retained responsibility for the communications network and invariably controlled the broadcasting and telecommunications industries (see Australian Heritage Commission 2003 for details). Seven decades later, deregulation of the telecommunications industry commenced with the corporatisation of Telecom Australia in 1975 and market-based solutions have proven popular for many years since. However, federal intervention in media and communications remains a popular policy tool for Australian governments, despite the private nature of most communications providers.
Australian industry elites focused on very different themes to their Canadian counterparts. Government intervention, various obstacles to infrastructure deployment, ex-ante regulation[9] (ITU International Telecommunications Union (ITU) 2008) and an unpredictable industry environment coupled with suspicion of other policy actors were recurring themes. These themes suggest that contemporary market-based approaches to communications services provision in Australia are yet to achieve the level of acceptance which has accompanied the relative ‘market maturity’ experienced in Canada (Spool 1997; Total Telecom Magazine 2007).[10] The overview of Australian communications history above provides some insight into these phenomena. Nonetheless, a single national solution designed by the federal government persists as the dominant paradigm for fixing Australia’s broadband problems. Much like the telegraph solution, the focus on a single part of the communications infrastructure suggests that the out-dated transportation concept of communications deployment continues to inform Australian policy choices. Regrettably, the ‘Australian way’ is of little value in appropriately connecting citizens as users in a time of rapid technological change.