Acquiring a White Elephant

Abstract

On 1 January 1911, the Northern Territory passed from South Australian to Commonwealth control. Some Australians anticipated great things, expecting the federal authorities to inaugurate a new era of demographic and economic growth in the north. Others were less hopeful. Prominent feminist Jessie Ackermann suggested that the change of management would bring no real change to the Territory but merely perpetuate the prevailing profligacy. Having sucked South Australia’s coffers almost dry, she wrote, “the white elephant of the Northern Territory recklessly thrusts its mighty trunk into the common treasury of the people, gulping down bushels of gold coins of the realm; with the result that it merely waxes fat, and its enlarged proportions render it an increasing problem for the Commonwealth and a genuine curiosity to the world.”¹ Ackermann’s imagery was exceptionally vivid but the white elephant metaphor was far from original. It had been routinely applied to the Territory since the 1880s.