Shipping is cheaper! So instead of an inland railway? Why not an inland canal?

But then we know that a modern freight train service is always going to be more cost-effective than road hauled freight, and only practical where rail isn't, mostly the almost unpopulated outback and that's way, way west of the great divide.

An inland canal can serve to move freight and endlessly available seawater, which can then be used inside evaporative glasshouses to grow, intensive labour, crops,

And or, site several dozen nuclear powered desal plants to create cost-effective broad-scale irrigation projects where none are now possible, to take full advantage of the next boom, the food boom. And given it eans a quid allow all of it to pay for itself and financed off-budget, so as the taxpayer is kept out of the loop.

If you don't have enough credible science, to know without a shadow of a doubt just how possible all that is!

Just don't descend to bagging it, because you just don't understand the science or just how simple the engineering actually is.

Nonetheless, the robber baron element who can see their rivers of gold screwed from the community will oppose anything that benefits the community more than them!

And like those who own parking lots in busy airports, will know all the bogus reasons, none of this can be allowed to proceed!

There are trillions in super funds etc., now begging for a home where there are guaranteed reliable income streams! And all of the above could provide that very security and get the CO2 spewing jumbo jets out of the sky as well as diesel-burning, long haul trucks off of our highways. And out further where they will be needed as never before!
Alan B.

A canal from Spencer Gulf to Lake Eyre would definitely be an environmental & economic winner. With the increased evaporation the surrounding country would become a fertile region that could accommodate thousands without crowding. Some rivers would become navigable with a little help from dredging & wetlands could be created.
Add to that a Mono rail system that can be enlarged as the demand & economy permit.
All this could be done by enhancing the natural environment instead of flogging it to death !
Simply start with the canal & everything else will fall into place ! Do away with expensive & polluting & fauna destroying highways !
Get the National Service gangs out there to get moving !

Monorails are an excellent idea if built on a continuous loop and as on-demand gondolas that allow social distancing by virtue of their design components and on-demand weight-related service paradigm. And the only real space they'd need would be sidewalks or centre space down existing highways.

The Spencer Gulf to Lake Eyrie would be stage one with stage two from just south of Broome to the lake, So as to allow flood gates on a dual-lane system to move both freight and flushing tidal flows, to move water and shipping in either direction and for free with just the height of northern tides supplying all the motive force.

Rolling wheels down either side with blades and regenerative braking, supply all the power needed to operate the lock gates and would prevent intrusion into the side, perhaps assisted by electric steering motors, fore and aft.

New space-age desal plants, could supply cost-effective potable water for millions of acres Food, fibre, fruit and nuts, coffee, tea and cocoa, whatever and as the prevailing climate conditions suit. For every one new job created by these projects, even more, will follow as service industry employment

And if the new farms and service industries are rolled out, as assisted co-ops, ensure all the money earned and taxes paid stay here, with only debt servicing taking say, 10%? half interest half capital repayment and repaid from a pool all enterprise contributes 15% into? And any surplus, divided equally when all the creation debt is drawn down?

The power source for the desal, MSR thorium, SMR! Nothing else stacks as cost-effective or as safe!
Alan B.

Now now Alan B.

Your childlike wonderment with grand techno-schemes has turned into science fiction again.

From untrialled on a practical business basis Thorium reactors you regurgitate the much discussed and discredited Bradfield Scheme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradfield_Scheme

Bradfield's is/was a inland irrigation project that was designed to irrigate and drought-proof much of the western Queensland interior, as well as large areas of South Australia. It required large pipes, tunnels, pumps and dams to divert water from tropical/monsoonal northern Australia to the western side of the Great Dividing Range and eventually flowing south west to Lake Eyre.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradfield_Scheme#Objections

Bradfield's scheme and others have been criticised because they are not practical. Including high capital and ongoing running costs which would make the project uneconomical.

BUT MAINLY:

The extreme evaporation rate in the interior is another negative determinant. No clear evidence has been provided that the amount of water supplied will exceed the EVAPORATION RATE. The reduction in river discharge to the Great Barrier Reef Lagoon may diminish coastal fisheries by reducing the supply of terrestrial organic matter to the coastal and estuarine environment.

In 1947, W.H.R. Nimmo, conducted a critical review of the scheme. He proved that Bradfield's estimates of the amount of water available from the easterly flowing rivers were about two and half times greater than it actually was. The error was attributed to the methodology used to calculate flow estimates was based on GERMAN rivers where the average temperature was much less than in northern Australia.

Soviet Russia tried and failed in their own river diversion scheme, with 1,000s dead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_river_reversal

plantagenet,
The Bradfield scheme's technical side was so far ahead of conventional thinking that it was literally left behind to where it now is old technology.
The principal however, remains the same & that is to make the interior fertile enough for human settlements & food production.
With modern technology that should be child's play but as Alan B keeps reminding us of, the mentality of those in power isn't anywhere near the available technology to realise the enormous potential of such a scheme !

The reduction in river discharge to the Great Barrier Reef Lagoon may diminish coastal fisheries by reducing the supply of terrestrial organic matter to the coastal and estuarine environment.
plantagenet,
What is diminishing the fish stocks is over-fishing, full stop ! What is killing the coral is pollution from direct, unfiltered & accelerated run-off from the towns & cities & mass tourism !
Run-off was never a problem when rainwater absorbed into the ground but since sealing of large areas now prevents this absorption all the polluting ingredients flow directly onto the Reef.
Such run-off should be harnessed, stored in sediment lagoons & then could be either pumped or tank transported west beyond the Great Dividing range where it could simply be directed into storage ponds or wells for small communities & recharging the acquifers.
A 600mm pipe could easily be placed below the tracks of a Mono Rail. Such a system could be expanded in any direction as long as it falls West beyond the GDR. It would not be something that gets built & be done with it. It'd be a decades long on-going project, all our generation needs to do is start it !