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Over the past financial year, WA mining and oil and gas companies contributed $83 billion directly to Australia’s economy, roughly one sixth of the entire federal government’s revenue over the period. This is more than the federal government’s budget for Medicare ($29.7 billion) and defence ($44.6 billion) combined. There are more than $140 billion worth of projects in the mining and oil and gas sector across WA, many of which are greenfield developments. The CMEWA said similar contributions from the resources sector would continue over the next decade.

WA mining and resources companies injected almost $122 billion into Australia’s economy in the 2019-20 financial year through direct and flow-on spending, helping create 309,000 full-time jobs during COVID-19. The figures, from WA’s peak resources industry body, revealed the extent to which the local sector powered economies and communities around the nation as they reeled from the impacts of the pandemic. “That’s why it’s so important that both industry and government continue to tackle key challenges like current and future skills shortages, in order to fully capitalise on the significant opportunities we have in front of us.”

Rather, what one should be looking for are explanatory factors which are themselves economy-wide. In reality, one doesn’t need to look far, for the past decade has seen a tsunami of regulation – from climate change to directors’ liability – that has increased the risk involved in investing and pushed up required profit margins and rates of return. And by the way, those regulations also make it harder for new firms to enter and expand, giving some substance to Treasury’s story.
We are, in other words, in the midst of a battle between an innovation process that is yielding enormous consumer benefits and a regulatory explosion that threatens those benefits. Once upon a time, Treasury would have been more alert to that clash and its dangers than anyone. Its analysis might have been technically less sophisticated than this paper is, but it would have focused on the real problems – and provided ­better guidance to policymakers.

Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia Keith Pitt said as the world recovers from the global COVID-19 pandemic, record iron ore prices have driven a surge in export earnings, while metallurgical coal exports are also benefiting from a surge in world steel production. “These incredible results underline the importance of Australia’s resources sector to the national economy and international markets throughout the COVID-19 downturn.”