Voice of Real Australia is a regular newsletter from ACM, which has more than 100 mastheads across Australia. Today's is written by ACM national agriculture writer Chris McLennan.
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Not everyone was overjoyed about the coming of the telegraph to Australia 150 years ago.
The incredible overland line, Australia's most ambitious engineering feat of the 19th century, had its detractors.
Nations were cut off from each other and people had grown used to weeks and even months waiting for ships to arrive with the latest news.
After all this isolation, instant communication took some getting used to, much like the coming of the internet in modern times.
"Will its uses add to the happiness of mankind," said one critic of the telegraph as detailed in Adam Courtenay's new book "Mr Todd's Marvel" on the construction of the overland telegraph.
"Superficial, sudden, unsifted, too fast for the truth, must be all telegraphic intelligence," said the New York Times in 1858, according to Mr Courtenay.
There are lessons here in history about the debate on ChatGPT, or the coming of artificial intelligence computer programs.
There are plenty who would like AI cast off into the desert where the telegraph wire was strung so it can be safely isolated from the world.
I blame a generation of Terminator movie fans for most of the panic, but back to Mr Courtenay's book.
The more people who learn about this nation-building event, the better.
The Royal Australian Mint issued a unique $1 coin last year in the lead up to the 150th anniversary of the first telegraph being sent from Australia but the anniversary fell flat.
Few people know about the importance of the overland telegraph but if you mention the tragic Burke and Wills expedition, they might be familiar with that.
The two historical events are intertwined.
The 2800km telegraph line built between Adelaide and Darwin in less than two years revolutionised communication between Australia and the rest of the world.
At the time of its construction, the parched interior of the continent had only been successfully crossed once.
And that only after several remarkable attempts by the dogged explorer John McDouall Stuart in 1862 - a year after the Burke and Wills expedition failed in 1861.
The amazing Stuart was South Australia's choice to perform the feat, the Burke and Wills expedition was Victoria's entrant in this perilous race
The telegraph line's route basically followed Stuart's path through the inland as does the highway crossing from south to north today.
Just over 300km north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory outback is the Frew Ponds Overland Telegraph Line Memorial Reserve.
This heritage-listed attraction is located is near the intersection of the Stuart and the Carpentaria highways as a tribute to Sir Charles Todd, builder of the line, and the subject of Mr Courtenay's book.
Stuart forged the path across the continent and UK astronomer Sir Charles built the thing.
As an aside, Sir Charles' wife Alice lent her name to Alice Springs.
This dusty reserve also commemorates the joining of the two ends of the line in 1872.
The following year the line handled nearly 9000 messages.
"We have this day, within two years, completed a line of communications two thousand miles long through the very centre of Australia ..." read the first message sent along the line by Sir Charles.
The "whispering line" joined a subsea cable from Port Darwin to Java and beyond to England.
Australia's isolation had ended.
The line was made up of 36,000 telegraph poles, insulators, pins and many tonnes of wire.
Eleven repeater stations were built along the route to boost the signal.
You don't have to be a sucker for outback stories like me to admire these events like these which forged Australia's character.
Mr Todd's Marvel by Adam Courtenay is available from Woodslane Press. He is the son of the famous Australian writer Bryce Courtenay.
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