Identifying the process(es) causing Australian hydroclimatic variability (on seasonal and longer time-scales) is not a clear cut exercise. As a result the lead-time, accuracy, precision, and regional-scale relevance of hydroclimatic forecasts in Australia is currently limited. Compounding this is the uncertainty surrounding the impacts associated with anthropogenic climate change – how will anthropogenic influences act to alter the already significant impacts associated with climate variability in Australia? Accordingly, there is currently a distinct gap between what climate science can provide and information that is practically useful for (and needed by) water resource managers. The results presented here show how improved understanding of interactions between the various climate drivers (both regional and global-scale), combined with increased knowledge about the interactions between climate processes and hydrological processes at the regional scale, will aid in attribution of climate change impacts, forecasting at a range of temporal scales and extreme event risk profiling (e.g. flood, drought, bushfire etc.). The development and use of simple, physically plausible, future scenarios specifically designed for use by water resource managers will also be presented as an alternative to “putting all our eggs in the one basket” (i.e. hoping the climate models will improve to the level that their outputs are useful for water resource management). Further discussion will also focus on the tendency for funding bodies to support climate model applications (or projects that simply produce predictions) rather than development of science or evaluation/validation of assumptions/models that are used to make the ‘predictions’. This problem needs to be addressed if we are to bridge the gap between climate science and the practically useful information that stakeholders require.