I'd think that an influx of more people would inevitably cause an increased demand for goods & services i.e. creation of jobs. As I said earlier, the challenge is to keep the developers at bay. To begin with a retirement village comes to mind. This would be a once in a lifetime opportunity to create a community of balanced supply & demand. Sounds idealistic ? A plain & simple society of living within their means & without the idiotic forced upon over- supply of unnecessary goods & services. Crickey, I'd move there !
Over population ? Well, short of literally shooting people or sterilizing them controlling overpopulation is a challenge only realised by a handful at this stage. It won't be long though & the subject will become vogue as did climate change. I think an overpopulation tax would be more sensible than that carbon circus.

its hard to takke the concept seriously[mainly knowing..the inevitable eugenics adgenda's..behind every population/sustainability issue

as others have pointed out saltifying such a huge aquafa...with saltier than sea water [on top of the great artesian basin...is insane

addin the employment issue even normal aquaculture begomes impossable[too salty]..noting the infastructure and roads between one acre estates..essentially 11 meters below sea level...with the delusional sea rises a remote possability

not to mention jobs...and fresh water needs[likely via desalinating the extra saLTY WATERS...BUT NEEDING NO DOUDT HUGELY EXPENSIVE PLANT/INFASTRUCTURES...damm cap loc

better to use high rises to grow hydroponiclly...to have highrise feedlots...right in the city[or in the suburbs...near egsisting services...using egsisting lighting systems...in egsisting and largly empty high rises...

one building could feed a town...unfinished high rises[scattered throughout the earth...many without even windows are ready made to ''fence' in and begin growing food...or fattening up meat..there is no need for eugenics

no need to deplete the gene chain..with the eugenisysts adgenda's...we can grow hydroponiclly...even allow co habitation with the beasts..collect methane..genersate gass..to make electicity..or clean its own waters...

we have to stopp thinking in only 3 dimentions..the 4 th opens 25 dec 2012...time we made some fast changes...just transporting all them people to nthe salt lakes is no remedy...we have changed nature enough..now let do some high level change...change we can believe in

This is something i have looked into and discovered how unfeasible it really is.
Sorry I didnt keep any links but you can find them yourselves if you really want.
The size of any channel to take water to lake Eyre would need to be around 2kms wide and up to 500m deep. (through mountains) It would need to be this big to have a constant flow into the lake to balance evaporation and seepage. This would apparently take about 5 years to dig using every bulldozer on earth.

One of the main reasonings for advocating this scheme is to increase rainfall in central Australia. The problem is it wont. If there was any effect on rainfall then it would be easy to find and measure at times when the lake has been full in the past. There have been numerous studies done when the lake was full and no increase in rain was found. The heat of central australia is not conducive to rain bearing clouds no matter how much water there is on the ground.

The high evaporation rates would fill the lake with salt within 2 years and the amount to be removed would be billions of tons every few years. There is nothing that can be done with this much salt except pile it into giant mountains or dump it back into the sea. Both extremely expensive and environmentally dubious ideas.

There is no justification for such environmental vandalism and I wish people could be more realistic and stop all this wishful thinking that Australia can be some sort of paradise and just accept it is an ancient, worn down place that will torment you with its harshness but also its beauty. Its never going to be the green and pleasant land of our ancestors nor the rich and productive new lands that got the septics as far as it has but a bushfire, flood and disaster ridden land that will rip your heart out and make you scream, but I wouldnt have it any other way. I love this country.

Willie,
I give you an 'A' for effort however you fail on several practical scientific grounds.
Your knowledge of the areas, particularly the amount of salt in the ground near and surface is diabolically large. It simply isn't a case of just add water and instant liveable land.
Think about how large areas of farming etc. land has become salted out due to playing with the water table.

Inundating this area with salt water would, if I recall the details, create a sea several times more saline than the Dead Sea. The effect would be to salt up, render the area even more toxic than it is. To desalinate that much water is currently beyond practical engineering.

The temperature would still be extreme all this would mean energy needs beyond what is capable to be generated by current non polluting methods. Then there's evaporation on gigantic proportions that would require continual replenishment.

You should look at what has and continues to happen to the yellow river since the 3 gorges dam. This is smaller than the size of development you are proposing and they don't have to worry about salt.
Problems of pollution,waste disposal, sewerage would be legendary.

NB the water at the top end of Spencer Gulf already has pollution problems. pumping the water would also spread the problem.

Even if this solution was possible it would be a temporary one at best. Simply put your plan addresses some of the symptoms not the problem.

Nice try but in the current capitalist system the plan would be practically speaking not possible

A much more sensible and I presume more practical project would be to
divert a proportion of the rivers emptying into the Gulf of Carpentaria
into Cooper's Creek and so Lake Eyre and into the Darling River.
I think someone from the National Party suggested this.

It would reduce the salt in Lake Eyre, supply Adelaide with more water,
perhaps increase the inland rainfall, enable farmers along the Darling to restart cropping.
It seems provided the civil engineering is practical to have everything
going for it.

This could just work, not as a retirement village, although that may be fun, & us old farts would not rust so quickly in the dry, but as a power house, & oil well.

Some of the latest thinking on ethanol production is that the most economic method, in both cost of production, & land area used, is to grow algae, in ponds, for the feed stock. The algae will grow best in very warm salty water, with high levels of CO2. Perhaps not that much salt, but that could be controlled.

In that area we have the heat, & the ponds, just add water, & CO2.

So, build some huge coal fired power plants. You could have a lovely railway to carry the coal out, & the ethanol back, but pumping coal out in a slurry & the ethanol back makes more sense. Now you have the CO2, & it's all ready to go. The thing would make the snowy look like something a couple of kids built with their Lego.

Self powering, no or very low pollution, & we save the food now being converted into fuel, what more could you want. All this in an area much smaller than required for any other method of producing replacement transport fuel.

The area is even big enough that I can still have my rust free retirement village, without ever seeing the industry.

Sorry, the experts have said that the evaporation would not be enough to generate rain, but they reckon the oceans will boil dry next year, so may be we can still hope for rain.

Of course, it could never happen today, someone will find a three winged blue eyed midge, which MIGHT be endangered by all this, so no go.

Still, after the chinese take over......