Given that high levels of growth are unsustainable in the long term, how can a ~15% growth rate in mining over the period 2004-2021 be sustained?
I accept that some of this is due to high prices rather than high volumes, especially post 2013-2017 when there was a pause in the unrelenting rise.
But it still leaves the economic consequences of Australia's laissez-faire political and resource strategy. When the minerals run out, what is Australia going to do with a barren manufacturing industry which will be even smaller than it is now. Such a policy unbalances the Australian economy and leaves it ill-prepared for the day the resources run out.
Of course, it is possible that China is stripping Australia's mineral resources as a long-term strategy leaving it's own resources for later use.
Could China be deliberately steering Australia into a state of an asymmetric unbalanced economy devoid of manufacturing that may not be recoverable for decades? Of course, such a strategy would not be possible without the willful or ignorant complicity of Australian politicians.
Australian metal ore and mineral quarterly exports ($A millions) since 1969.