Go ask your good wife and kids if they would like to move to +45 heat, cyclones, away from families, flies, no amenities etc etc
VH-UFO, if your comment is directed at me, then all I can say is my wife enjoys the heat much more then I (yes 45 degree heat). Between us we have lived at Alice Springs, Mt Isa, Kunnus, Darwin, various parts of north and central QLD and my wife is born and (mainly) bred in Emerald. So heat, flies and isolation is nothing new to us. We dont have a single relative live near us anyway and the kids will just do what they are told. Granted, the last is much easier if they are not yet at school age.
It takes all tyes of people to make the world spin, and there will be a large number of families who will prefer to live in a regional centre if it means dad (or mum) comes home every night.
Cpt Bloggs the problem now is that you are looking at a much higher population than was envisaged for those towns. I doubt you can find the volume of people required who are willing to live in those areas permanently without starting up a whole immigration scheme.
Neville, your population argument may very well be true. But not even WAs capitol city is set up and prepared for the population growth that has/is happening. You dont have to look any further then the roads, public transport and water supply to see it. And lets not even go down the path of professional services such as Doctors, dentist ect.
Im not suggesting to can FIFO completely. Sh!t, my and my wifes livelyhood rely on it. But maybe entice some of the workers to live locally and FIFO the others. Kalgoolie, Mt Isa Gladstone, Newcastle amongst others are examples of big towns that are centred around the rescource industry with locally employed workers.