The following article is a perspective on Australia's future oil production, written by Dave Cohen from ASPO USA:

A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away.
     — Gene Roddenberry

Australia serves as a microcosm of a world entering the peak oil era.¹ It can be shown beyond a reasonable doubt that Aussie oil production has peaked. As their oil companies struggle to offset production losses as demand grows, Australians must face up to the stark choices these circumstances present. One road, taken by the United States long ago, creates dangerous, ever-growing dependencies on imported oil to fill the supply and demand gap. The other road, leading to energy independence and security, spawns alternatives that allow Australia to move beyond oil. Will the Land Down Under seize the opportunity they now have to make the right choice?

An integrated policy response

Peak Oil: Preparing for the Petrol Droughts - Scientists who warned us for ages about climate change were ignored and derided.  Now, droughts, hotter temperatures and melting glaciers are showing the warnings should have been heeded earlier and action taken. Other scientists have warned us about Peak Oil for years and they have been similarly dismissed, probably just as unwisely. Peak Oil is when the rate of global oil production changes from its current increasing trend to the unavoidable downtrend as the world’s oil fields start their overall decline phase.  We will not run out of oil, but there will be less available each year in future than there has been in the past.

Read the full article and link to references about what Australia can do to prepare.