Am about to pack up computer then go to the airport to start a sequence of flights to give this a try.
I already have a room in a hostel booked for a few nights for when I get there, and will see how stuff goes.
Anyways, since there's been on and off discussion on this, just thought I'd post that I'm actually giving this a try.
(Will likely be a day or two before I can reply/comment/etc, given length of flights, etc.)
EDIT: Ugh. You take care of one aspect of the planning fallacy, and fail elsewhere. Long story short, I missed my flight and had to reschedule it to friday.
EDIT2: Packing up computer and going off to airport. Again. This time will be early.
EDIT3: And am here. and am exhausted. :) Will start looking for work stuff tomorrow. There's a job board at this hostel, but apparently there's not much currently. But right now am rather sleep deprived.
EDIT4: So today (Monday, May 21st) went to the visitor information center. I must have misunderstood the original article, was under the impression that the visitor center had job boards. Didn't, but pointed me to a nearby recruiting/contracting agency which they said might have appropriate stuff for visitors on a work&holiday visa. Went there. said that at least as of today there's nothing, but also needed a resume (which I didn't have with me, and my work experience is limited anyways.) Anyways, got a copy of the form, will dig out/fix up what resume I do have, and also keep looking. The board at this hostel didn't have much of anything in the way of work that I saw. Will look again, though, and see if I can find others.
EDIT5 (May 29th): Still looking for work, been asking/applying to various places, including that recruiting/contracting agency, and am right now waiting (well, and still looking.) Over the weekend, though, MileyCyrus and I went on an organized 3day Uluru/Kata Tjuta/Kings Canyon trip/hikes, which was awesome. But again, as far as work, tossing out inquiries and stuff all over, trying to find out who's hiring at the moment.
There has been a lot of speculation in the US media that China's export slowdown is going to hit natural resource economies hard. Australia's economy is especially intertwined with China's so I think there is some room for concern. Naive investors often swarm into a bull-market shortly before the bust. I would be worried that moving to Australia is a lot like investing most of your money into a hot-stock rumor.
For Americans who don't want to look quite so far afield for greener pastures, consider that the unemployment rate in North Dakota is 3% (lower than Western Australia). North Dakota is also natural resource focused, but mostly oil, not metal exports to Asia.
ETA: Also, this:
The Queensland government has started looking at design based business initiatives to try and offset the slowdown in the mining industry, I'd consider this a reasonable leading indicator of what you're suggesting here. Has gained very little traction though.
There's also a partition between raw project labour, and subgroups in the overall resource economy. Project based construction roles pay well with fixed terms, mining and refining sectors will slow down, gas sector is starting up at the moment (project based) but won't yield many jobs once it goes operational (can run the buggers with a handful of people).
Still has a healthy decade left in it, give or take, so isn't a bad option for short term transient jobs.