The legacy of that is still evident today with the ruined farmhouses. Droughts and floods have had a large effect on the Australian economy for many, many years. In the 1990s, the model of the Australian economy at the Reserve Bank developed by David Gruen and Geoff Shuetrim had the Southern Oscillation Index as a significant determinant of GDP in Australia.
[1] Today, while agriculture is a much smaller share of the economy than it used to be, the effect of climate on that sector is still evident in aggregate GDP. The current drought has already reduced farm output by around 6 per cent and total GDP by about 0.15 per cent.