What effect did Robert O'Hara Burke have on Australia?

Answer 1

Very little.

The South Australian government offered a reward of two thousand pounds to the first expedition to reach the northern coast. Due to the South Australian challenge, the Victorian Government decided to sponsor its own extremely well-funded and well-equipped expedition from south to north. This was the expedition led by Robert O'Hara Burke.

Burke had absolutely no experience in exploring, and it remains a mystery as to why he was even chosen to lead the expedition. He was a police superintendent on the goldfields, and had a tendency towards quick impatience (which was his undoing, in the end).

Burke and Wills did not actually find anything of value on their arduous trek across Australia's inland. They found no new rivers and no new pasture land, and honestly did not contribute anything to the discovery of Australia. Their greatest claim to fame is the unfortunate fact that they embarked upon the biggest, most expensive expedition in Australia's history, and due to Burke's impatience, it ended up the most disastrous, with the loss of three lives.