Definately not insiginificant to its enemies- the ANZUS, and UKUSA treaties, if present in Fallouts world (which is likely given they're the result of the British Empire's limited ability to protect its Interest in the Pacific in WW2) would have drawn Australia, and potentially New Zealand, into the war on the American side.

Yet in fallout, it seems that pretty much all diplomacy is out the window, with USA annexing Canada, UN being disbanded, Europe being torn a new one via the resource wars, etc. So I highly doubt we would have joined with America, England or any other nation if nobody were "friends" anymore. Yet logically, if an enemy power decided to invade us or draw us into the war, they would have to: first, calculate the odds of success, determine what would be gained in the endeavor, and compare that to what such an undertaking would cost and then pitch that to their politicians (assuming that their country is not under military rule). In hindsight, an invasion/incursion with Australian forces would result in losses so heavy, it would demoralize any force with two brain cells, cause the entirety of Australian society (less women, children & elderly) (and assuming it was an invasion) to fight back with determination that would make japanese martyrs look docile and leave both their home country AND Australia easy pickings for a force with the will to seize opportunities when they see them (I'm looking at you USA -__-).

That aside.

While this is true, I believe that in the fallout world (and in our world), if they decided to nuke us, that the only places worth nuking are Melbourne and Sydney, being that they are the most heavily populated of Australia's main cities. There's also the point that both perth and the area's around brisbane are teaming with natural resources, while adelaide and darwin are not populated enough (in my opinion) to be worth an extra nuke. Now these points made, two nukes, while highly demoralizing, are not enough to entirely kill every person capable of surviving in a post apocalyptic scenario, even with radiation taken into account.
Another reason why Australia would survive is that we take care of our mates, are more than smart enough to create a vault system (possibly better than America's system that was designed by scientists working for sadist businessmen) and are resourceful enough to rebuild after the rest of the world goes the way of the dodo's.

Before anyone comments on why Australia have not invaded America, it is because that, largely, we honestly don't give a damn about America, we couldn't care less about it prewar, and we couldn't care less post-war. Thats just how we Aussies are, we are satisfied with the country we have.

Oh my, that turned into a rant rather quickly, if you bothered reading the whole thing :cookie: have a cookie :disguise:

The problem with a vault system is that they cost a fortune.

I did a speculative anolysis of the Vault projects costs in current real world costs in an earlier thread here (I think it was called costs of the vault project if you want to search). But basically, I took the one pre-war figure that we do know (cost of a Chryslus Highwayman), compared it to the cost of a similar vehicle today, and then used the published Vault 13 costs to come up with a speciulative per vault (and per head) figure. I forget the exact figures, but I do remember that the US DOD budget could pay for 5 vaults (if the entire budget was redirected to vaults - no Army, Navy, Air Force, Pentagon. Just vault building)

What am I getting at? Well, the DOD budget is $US 651 Billion in 2009. Total Taxation revenue in Australia in the same year was $AU 296.5 Billion Current coversion rate puts the Australian Taxation revenue at $US 266.5 Billion. If the entire Australian government shut down, and everyone in the ATO (tax office) decided to work for free (and its suppliers likewise decided not to charge them) you may be able to build 2 or 3 V13 style vaults per year (and therefore "Save" 2000-3000 people).

There is a loading screen that says Tenpenny came from England to make his fortune.

First off, we're talking in terms of 2010 for something that happens in 2077 on an alternate world whose mindset is close to alien to what we have experienced. Now think victorian era mentality grasping construction of our space shuttles. There may be production processes we haven't dreamed of that make building the vaults cost effective. We never actually know who originally go into the vaults. Ever see the movie 2012? Who originally walked onto the boats before the crew grew a conscience? Yep, the VERY rich!

Vault Tec advertise and pushes the construction of vaults to the public so public money is freely given. The public might actually believe their generosity will get them a room. Somehow I don't believe rich aussies are any more benevolent.

Damn, I was gonna use that argument, except for the rich people part. I think rich people being the first ushered into vaults or not would depend on the current prime minister and whether they are a "donkey" or not, but that's politics so I'm not going to discuss that end of the debate as its prohibited.

Any-who, what ^ Reynart said about the industrialization possibly being different and it being a different time/timeline. With those points already in the open, who is to say that the Australian economic structure isn't different to what it is today/during the 1950's? (if you stay with the fallout timeline diverging in the 50's, Australia still uses English currency: penny's, etc.). But in my mind, if you simply put it down to an exact science, there are too many unknown variables to fully determine how Australia developed between the timeline split and 2077 to do anything but speculate on how and in what direction Australia developed economically/industrially/politically/etc. Hell, you could say that we didn't allow any more foreigners into our country and kicked out those already there that are not of british/Aboriginal origin (which would hardly seem worth the effort IMHO), but that is purely ungrounded speculation.

Anywho, I do believe I have wandered from the topic slightly :sadvaultboy: so, lets just SPECULATE that Australia is functioning on the dollar, still has a multicultural society/workforce and still made their military professional instead of just enlisting citizens and giving them basic training.
If all these things have still occurred, then we can assume that developments were made along a semi-linear route (technology wise) and we presumably ended up with fully automated assembly lines that required a manager and 2-4 mechanics/robot repair specialists by say,... 2040-50(?) and started production at full pace sensing tension between two of the biggest military powers of our time (and fallout's time, obviously), we would have built 4 or 5 vaults within 15-ish years that would house 1000-2000 (1000 + food source e.g. cattle. very slim chance of 2000) each, that is realistically all that Australia would need/could function with after the US and China blow each-other to hell, as Australia's main concentrations of populace are spread across the eastern coastline between three (four if you MUST include ACT) cities/states. Leaving our scientific and industrial force to preemptively start rebuilding and stocking resources for the new world that emerges from the ashes.