I've lived in Sydney all my life, and often meet people who are here on a working holiday and are very disappointed. For instance, this weekend I met a guy from Jordan working in a convenience store. He was making $800-1000/week working nightshift[1], and enjoying the novel, liberal culture, but found it difficult to save much.[2]

Now I know what to tell people, which makes me feel a lot better. I'd be curious to know whether you could get a similar deal in other parts of the country, though. Alice Springs is not a greatly pleasant place, from what I understand. Many parts of the country are much nicer, such as the sub-tropical coastal part near the NSW/Queensland border around Byron Bay, the Murray riverina, far North Queensland, etc. Alice Springs is a small town in the desert.

[1] Night and weekend work generally increases the minimum wage. The penalty rates are 1.5 to 2 times, so a night shift sometimes works out to $30 an hour.

[2] If you strategise properly it's possible to live quite well in Sydney for $450-500 a week. I got into the habit of this during my PhD, when I was on a low stipend. However, you need to divide housing costs between lots of people (I live with my girlfriend and another couple in a 2br unit), and you need to only go out in cheap areas. It's common for young professionals to fail to save anything substantial on $80-100k a year here.