Perhaps no one has summed up Australia’s geographical remoteness better than historian and academic Geoffrey Blainey, who titled his 1966 book The Tyranny of Distance.

Blainey was referring to the early uncertainty Australians felt of their future economic prosperity, given the centre of the British Empire as well as the United States were great distances from the first settlement.

What Blainey did not say was that the tyranny of distance still existed once you sailed into Sydney Harbour. And still does.