The Bradfield Scheme and the Australian Outback
Could tropical rivers be turned inland to transform the Australian Outback? For almost a century, the Bradfield Scheme has offered one of Australia's boldest answers to drought, regional development and the uneven geography of water. First promoted by engineer John Bradfield in 1938, the plan proposed dams, tunnels and diversions across Queensland's Great Dividing Range, sending northern water towards the Flinders, Thomson and Cooper systems and, in the popular imagination, towards Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre.
The Bradfield Scheme and the Australian Outback tells the full story behind that promise. It traces Bradfield's career, the engineering culture that produced the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Brisbane's Story Bridge, and the age of nation-building public works in which remaking inland Australia could be presented as a practical national mission. It explains the original scheme in clear language: which rivers were involved, how water was meant to cross the range, where irrigation and hydroelectric power would fit, and why Bradfield believed the project might even alter Australia's climate.
The book also investigates what happened when the measurements were tested. Hydrologists challenged Bradfield's rainfall records, runoff estimates and assumptions about tropical catchments. William Nimmo's 1947 investigation became an early official rejection, yet the idea survived. Later versions were compared with the Snowy Mountains Scheme, attached to inland-sea proposals, and repeatedly revived as a solution to drought and northern development.
Modern politics brought the Bradfield Scheme back into national view. Bob Katter, Barnaby Joyce, Pauline Hanson, Deb Frecklington and Queensland governments all played roles in its political afterlife. The book reconstructs the 2019 revival, the 2020 Queensland election debate and the government-commissioned assessments that tested contemporary pipelines, pumped diversions and alternative routes. It explains why the 2022 expert findings rejected the scheme as economically unviable, and why that verdict did not end the argument.
Following the water from coast to interior reveals the physical questions behind the slogans. How much water do northern rivers carry reliably? What would be lost to storage, transport and evaporation? Could irrigated agriculture pay the cost of delivered water? Would more surface water create more rain? What would diversions mean for estuaries, wetlands, the Great Barrier Reef lagoon, inland flood pulses, native fish, birds, salinity and Traditional Owners' Country?
Grounded in Australian water history, engineering assessments, climate modelling and the politics of regional development, this is both a history of the Bradfield Scheme and an investigation of Australia's enduring dream of drought proofing. It is written for readers interested in the Australian Outback, Queensland water, river diversion, Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, irrigation, megaprojects and the contested future of inland Australia.
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