Constructing Australia is the history about the birth and development of Australia told through three major events: The Sydney Harbour Bridge; The Kalgoorlie pipeline and The Telegraph line a 3-part mini series on ABC TV.

This engaging collection tells the story of how three of Australia's greatest man-made icons were built. These are the powerful stories of the human, political, social and scientific dramas at the heart of achievements that shaped a nation. Covering the epoch from the 1860s to the 1930s, what emerges from these stories of hubris, survival, wilderness, struggle, conflict and the indigenous frontier, is nothing less than an epic: the emergence of the nation and its relationship with the wider world.

The Bridge
The first documentary celebrates the 75th anniversary of one of Australia's most loved icons, this is the story about building the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Built during the dark days of the Great Depression and finished in March 1932, it is the legacy of a fateful partnership between two very different men - a brilliant engineer, JJC Bradfield, and a maverick politician, Jack Lang - who shared a relentless ambition to create "the people's bridge".

Pipe Dreams
In the late 1800s, two men shared a vision for opening up Western Australia by pumping a river of water through pipes across the desert. Isolated goldfields were ripe with precious metal, but the people were dying of thirst. The state's first Premier and leading explorer, Sir John Forrest, had a vision to take water to the goldfields. In Charles Yelverton O'Connor, he found the man he needed to turn his dreams into reality. At the time the biggest and most ambitious engineering project of its kind in the world would save thousands from disease and drought; unlock untold riches in gold. But the five long years of the pipeline's construction would be dogged by controversy, destroy reputations and push one individual to breaking point. Their determination created one of the biggest weirs in the southern hemisphere and one of the longest pipelines in the world.

A Wire Through The Heart
John McDouall Stuart's incredible crossing of this inhospitable land from south to north enabled Charles Todd to construct a telegraph line through the heart of the continent, bringing Australia to the world and the world to Australia. Its construction heralded the start of a new communications era every bit as revolutionary as the internet.

News from overseas arrived in hours rather than months, securing Adelaide's position as the centre for early colonial communications. It made Todd a hero - but it cost Stuart his life