The build-in Firefox home page about:home will do searches via the international Google search page.
You can set the Australian Google website as the Home page: http://google.com.au

You can install the google.com.au search engine from the Mycroft website.

• http://mycroft.mozdev.org/google-search-plugins.html

Sure , I can set the home page , but that has no effect on limiting the pages searched , maybe other than to limit them to those in the english language. I need to restore the option which was present in older versions of Firefox for Mac to limit the search to websites from Australia. I do not want to loose the option to use international sites, just to select Australia only , when that is applicable to the purpose my search . For example, if I am looking for an Australian supplier of Ford motor vehicles , I am not interested in suppliers from the United States Even if it did work having to go back and reset your home page when you want to change the limits of a search is hardly convenient is it?

How can I restore the option to limit a search to Australian sites?

Use www.google.com.au as the home page if you want to restrict searches to Australian pages. You can find a link in the menu bar at the left side of the result page.

How do I restore Firefox with the Google Australia page as the main page without having to resort to the ridiculously tiny Google Australia access on the top left of the page?

See:

• https://support.mozilla.com/kb/How+to+set+the+home+page