WI: the Australian interior were habitable?

It's a variety of factors, some geographical and others economic, but the most significant is that Western Australia was settled very late, and did not gain the demographic traction of the East. Western Australia is smaller and dryer than Eastern Australia, but not to the point that demographics might suggest. It is mineral rich and a massive producer of agricultural products. At Federation it accounted for 5% of the population; now it is more than 10%. The Pilbara and Kimberly in particular could support two orders of magnitude more people if properly and sustainably developed.

To an even greater extent than the rest of Australia WA is simply underpopulated, and did not receive anything like the immigration that it could support. It will become much more heavily populated over time though, and while Perth will probably never reach the size of Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne (all of which are projected to be somewhere in the vicinity of 10 million in the latter half of the century), but its proportion of the total will continue to grow. The people simply need to come into existence.
 

Curiousone

Banned
I would be very wary of putting a lot of water on what has been very dry land since the end of the last Ice Age. Such land tends to accumulate a lot of salt or alkali, and heavy watering can quickly bring those to the surface and ruin the land. Judicious watering can help native grasses grow better, and the land could then support more grazing, but I don't think you could make it into a breadbasket like the great plains...

This was the 50's. Ecology? What's that. We'll just make the land what we want it to be. With Science.

(Yes OTL did avoid major ecological destruction, hubris in this.
I suppose someone could make a 'Grapes of Wrath' TL set in OZ in the 70's/80's.).
 

katchen

Banned
I would be very wary of putting a lot of water on what has been very dry land since the end of the last Ice Age. Such land tends to accumulate a lot of salt or alkali, and heavy watering can quickly bring those to the surface and ruin the land. Judicious watering can help native grasses grow better, and the land could then support more grazing, but I don't think you could make it into a breadbasket like the great plains...
You don't WANT to put a LOT of water on what has been very dry land. In fact the idea is to get the water to the roots of the plants you are trying to cultivate. That's why trickle-drip irrigation is so useful.
With drip irrigation, it might actually be feasible to divert water from the Mitchell River or even farther north in Cape York by pipe into the Diamantina and Cooper Creek Basins--or even use seawater desalinized by wave action (a technology pioneered in Australia, by the way) see www.water-technology.net/news/newsaustralia-pilot-worlds-first..
but also the TL "A more powerful Land Down Under which also mentions this technology.

In this way, not only is it cost effective to use expensively diverted or desalinized water for agriculture on a large scale because the water is being used efficiently, a minimal amount of soil is being moistened leading to a minimal amount of salt migration and soil salinification. And it can pay to farm over truly large areas of Australia. http://www.bing.com/search?q=wave a...F&form=CONMHP&conlogo=CT3210127&ShowAppsUI=1#
 
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