Oh dear, you mention the Kimberlies. The reality is that with all the available technologies its taken ages for anything to be able to substantially develop. The Ord River irrigation system was the first attempt not that long ago and while they now are going much better its been a huge battle to make it sustainable.
Australia even for the first fleeters was a devastatingly harsh environment even though they had tools and equipment and guns for survival. If they had been shipwrecked here without any of their tools without seed to plant, wonder how they would have gone in spite of the knowledge they had from being lucky enough to be born in Europe.
If you were stranded in the bush with no shop to buy your clothes from and no fruit orchards to pick from. Not even coconut trees., You might have to use rocks to carve up some sort of spear and to produce a fire to cook a snake or kangaroo with. Wonder how you would fare with that. Probably starve unless some indigenous person skilled in bush survival was to save you.
Think about bunny even some of our explorers with all their knowledge guns and supplies
did not survive the harsh conditions.
New Guinea and other tropical countries had lots of natural advantages Australia did not have in terms of the landscape and what grew there .
