Hi VNE, I admire your optimism and spirit. I too am a low hours recent pilot, flying for personal (and hopefully business) reasons, not commercial, and I have also been surprised to discover the state of the aviation industry in this country outside of RPT.
Regarding your electric race idea, I really don't want to be a downer but I see a fundamental challenge involving (a) the size of Australia and (b) the range of current (or prospective in the near term) electric aircraft. Unlike a car, which is supported on asphalt and thus better able hide extra weight once rolling, planes need to pay for every extra kilo all the time in lift / thrust. There is an electric Pipistrel trainer operating somewhere in Oz already, but I believe it has a flight time of around an hour, including reserve. I admire your enthusiasm, but I'm struggling to see the viability of a round-Australia mission in an E-Plane any time soon. We're always hearing about a magic breakthrough in battery tech, but like nuclear fusion it's been about ten years away for over half a century and may remain that way for a lot longer. Other low-emissions propulsion systems, such as bio-fuels, hydrogen, etc. might be a better bet and are seeing some level of investment.
I see a potential area where tech advances could help promote aviation, and that's on-demand services - a kind of "Uber for flying". Rather than running fixed scheduled services between regional centres, which is not economically viable, an app-based demand aggregator matches people who want to travel, their desired routes and range of dates (the more flexible the better the deal) with service providers. Depending on numbers that can be aggregated, that could be a range of plane sizes, from a Cirrus through to a PC-12, etc. Kind of like a budget charter option. Here's a startup doing something similar in America:
kinectair.com
That would not only be a positive for aviation, but also for what I reckon is this country's biggest problem - massive over-centralisation - "putting all our eggs in very few baskets". Better transport connections between regional centres would encourage regional development and decentralisation. For example, to get from Coffs Harbour to Moree is a six-hour drive before accounting for breaks, or a big mission via existing RPT changing in Sydney. Either way, it's the best part of a day out of someone's schedule each way. If you could get there in an hour or two, with a bit of flexibility, it would encourage people in those places to work together on various projects, as well as tourism and family travel.
I've heard the thing about the local runway being the most important high-street in town for various US towns. There's definitely pent-up desire for aviation participation in Australia - judging by waiting lists at the local flying schools around here - and the influx of people in many regional areas during Covid would also be a factor. It would be great to see a positive and proactive approach to exploring the related opportunities.
Good topic. Good luck.