Australia can trace much of its economic good fortune to shifting tectonic plates, billions of years ago.

Supercontinents crunched together and crumbled. In their place formed a new one, rich in the mineral resources that mean Australians today enjoy among the highest standards of living in the world.

But these quirks of geology can’t take all the credit.

Iron ore, gold, lead, coal and diamonds aren’t worth anything when they’re buried beneath the ground.

Getting them out and to market takes an enormous slog.

It requires infrastructure. Rail lines, ports, roads and bridges.

It requires millions of hours of labour from workforces in the tens of thousands.

It takes entire towns and cities to be built to support these workforces.

The industry pioneers get a lot of the credit for doing

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