Nothing wrong with the outback. Its where all the minerals are.
If you're interested in terraforming then why not flood the outback? Have a look at the water course (dry) which runs from Port Augusta in South Australia to Lake Torrents and the to Lake Eyre which is IIR below sea level at its deepest. There is IIRC about 100 miles which would need to subside to let the waters from the Spencer Gulf to flow inland to Lake Torrens then to Lake Eyre. A nice inland sea would do a great deal towards improving rainfall on the western side of the Great Dividing Range and water flow in the Murray-Darling and Cooper basins.
I have looked into that one. As recalled, the elevations are
not in tune. Lake Torrens itself is about 100 feet above sealevel, and there is a hill of another 100 between Lake Eyre and that.
Level the hill and still we have hundreds of miles of at least 80 feet of head loss. That is a lot of electricity to continually pump for an erratic water potential scattered all over the outback and much of it in vapor that falls elsewhere outside the basin and/or Australia altogether.
I am not saying that it would not work, or will not because if the math is right (butterflies in the international climes) it will quite possibly be done. The one through Tunisia to Algeria is similar size and clime, far cheaper and only a ten foot height max, but the locals think it as the will of god.
Both projects might be better with algae manufacture (it gets shocked into producing oil and naturally clumps up in gravity drift through evaporation?), providing an initial incentive, but the following is really too small in expanse for much of that.
There is a small hill of 80 feet, I recall, and before that a head of about 40 or so for one in Israel, but it would cross the fertile plains of Armagedeon (no joke) with seawater and an easy target, to replenish the Dead Sea.
The Quattara Depression in Egypt has a 450 foot or so head but a 200 foot drop and flat surface for maximum evaporation. I doubt it has much a chance, and it is too close to the Mediterranean with wind currents of rain out payback.
Getting back to Australia, my guess is icebergs from Antarctica are a better sell, but this is only a guess and one that is filled with delivery problems as yet unsolved by those who officially have looked at the situation. Desalination involves a lot more energy than people think, as water has to be incredibly cheap to be efficient as a producer on today's marketplace. The nice thing about gravity drains is that they are permanent with very little maintainence needed, like a well build dam.
Icebergs, if ever the bugs are worked out, are immediate, but still one must pump the water inland. About 1/10th of Australia might be assisted in this way, like the now dry Murray river area, the Nullarbor plain, even the far Eyre
basin as it is pure water and can be used immediately and locally (rainfall is notoriously erratic and in irrigation areas even viewed as a pain do to this).
Finally, be advised that the Gibson et al desert areas of the outback are depressions of the climate, meaning of course that air sinks into them. That is why there are few clouds and fewwer rain producing fronts.
Hard to squeeze out even the water evaporating in _an Ocean_ which is much larger than any new Lake Eyre. Ocean areas in the North/South of Equator lattitude zone depression belts get erratic storms and typically have about 18 inches of rain at sea/small islands, not enough for great agriculture. The smaller hypothetical Lake Eyre would deliver much less an increase of a few inches naturally there at present. Maybe on the periphery boundary areas near the Great Divide or due to irrigation of still erratic watercourses?
