The Australian colonies evolved a government-centred model of infrastructure provision that was novel and, by the standards of the times, reasonably effective in supplying a broad range of infrastructure services. This chapter surveys existing interpretations and explanations of the role government played in infrastructure development in the Australian colonies, especially rural rail, providing explanations that blend efficiency, path dependence and, ultimately, vulnerability to rent seeking. By international standards, the Victorian commission model was an important innovation, giving rise to Andre Metin's famous descriptor, 'socialism without doctrine'. As with transport, the economic and social case for investment in communications sprang from the 'tyranny of distance'. The history of rail in the 19th century shows considerable vacillation between government and private roles; thus, some explanation is needed of why the public ownership model, even if initially contingent and accidental, 'stuck' and spread in the Australian colonies.

Australian economic history as a branch of social science has had a history of disputation and debate between different approaches. Australian thinkers have made distinctive contributions to economic and economic-historical thinking since the late 19th century. The years immediately following World War 2 marked a watershed in Australia's economic development, as in the rest of the advanced capitalist world. In Australia the maturation of the orthodox approach to economic history was a natural outgrowth from the earlier era's interests in the use of statistics combined with a causal narrative presentation and also sectoral development theory. The seminal works of Fitzpatrick, which were heterodox but not strongly Marxist, had a central emphasis on social class and capitalist power. Noel Butlin's concept of 'colonial socialism' attempted to bring institutional political economy further into the centre of analysis, a perspective implicit in much older writing about Australia's history but one lacking conceptualisation.