Willie,
You want a dream? How about.

Build a large Tidal electricity generator on the Kimberly coast (an ideal location) where there are massive tides, to give CHEAP power that attracts industry. This in turn attracts people for work, which attracts schools, shopping centres and soon you will have a whole new city.

Something for you to think about. Better project than filling Lake Eyre with salt water.

Banjo,
Re Kimberly, but what about neaps ?
I suppose you could have a gas fired power station that you wind up and down.
At least you would know the timing better than solar or wind.

Lots of gas up there if it has not all been sold to the Chinese.

However as everything will become local in the future I suspect that
no industry would be interested in being that far from its market.

Sorry, but I think it is too late for industry up there.

Banjo, you ask why there is no water in the Nullabor. For the same reason there is no water in the center of Australia, temperature. High temperature creates high pressure which will repulse rain bearing low pressure. This effect maybe felt by low pressures 1000's of kilometers away. I talked to the BOM about this, and it seems they have never considered it. Until we reduce the temperature and hence pressure of inland Australia, things will only get worse.

I like your idea of a wave generator of the Kimberly coast. A positive idea. Eack sustainable center should generate its own clean water and power. Just needs sustainable housing and a limit to the number of people who could settle there. Top down design means considering population, unlike what is happening on the east coast. Another area to consider for this type of development would be Cooper Basin where the geothermal energy is produced. Presently BHP is sucking up half the power for one of their mines. How much do they pay for their electricity, who knows except Canberra

Examinator,
the examples you dished up here are exactly what's needed to be looked at in order not to make the same mistake. As far as I am aware the Yellow River is a high volume flow as is the Nile unlike the trickles in Northern Australia. NQ rivers are very high volume for short periods during which much waters is simply lost to run-off. That is the water that could be stored. Already the artesian water is getting low so a couple of rivers diverted inland would recharge the basin. I don't think anyone has ever proposed actual dams. It's more like re-directing water flow.
i'm not anti-intellectual as you infer, I'm anti ingnorant pretend intellectual i.e. those who received good education but don't know why & what for. Joh is dead & gone & rather than bag the man I'd suggest we learn from his successes & mistakes. Just remember, if it weren't for Joh many southerners would not be able to enjoy a good life style in the North.

<<High temperature creates high pressure>>
Umm no it doesnt.

Start weather 101

Air is a fluid and acts the same as your boiling pot of water. Warm air rises and cool air sinks. Rising air exerts less pressure at the surface leading to low pressure areas. Cold air sinks and exerts a stronger pressure at the surface thus leading to high pressure areas.

Over central australia in summer (and sometimes in winter) you will notice isolated low pressure systems. These are called heat lows and are formed directly from the heating of the arid desert soils and subsequent rising of the air (forming low pressure) over those areas. These do not contain any moisture due to there being none to begin with and the fact that it is so hot there.

The rest of the time there is a belt of high pressure over the australian continent that stretches right round the world. This is caused by a circulation called Hadlee cells that form when the sun causes heating in the tropics and causes the air to rise, in low pressure systems, all around the equator. This rising air has to be balanced by falling air somewhere and that place is the mid latitudes, right above australia.

As I mentioned before high pressure is caused by descending cool air and as it descends it gets drier and warmer and suppresses cloud formation and rainfall. This has led to deserts all across the globe that are under this belt of high pressure. Look at any map and you can see them in both hemispheres.

If you really did talk to the BOM about this they must have laughed at you quite a bit.

End weather 101

Sprawl is not the problem as the achievable density offsets within the expanding areas can deliver the desired results' but the politics of nimbyism and sucking up to the biggest political benefactors and the central ivory tower phallic symbol syndrome is.