How do we make sense of what this sort of extreme mining-driven capitalism means for ordinary people like us living in the suburbs of Brisbane (young old workers retired home-makers)?
There will be huge demand for mining workers but that will be accompanied by huge demands from mining companies to be permitted to import skilled mining workers from overseas.
There will be huge demands for capital inflow to build mining and transport (for minerals and ports) infrastructure. Capital for other types of construction such as housing and social infrastructure will have to compete with this.
There will be huge greedy plundering pressure from sovereign wealth funds and multinationals overseas to buy Australian mining and company assets either outright or as much as our government will allow them to lay their hands on.
There will be huge outflows of profits from Australiaand huge holes in the ground.
With gas mining there will be fracked strata deep in the ground leaching into our major aquifers such as the Great Artesian Basin.
There will be rich farming lands such as the Darling Downs food basin dotted all over like small pox with gas extraction wells and pipelines and vast weirs to hold waste salt-water.
What part will global peaking of energy supplies play in how this mining boom plays out?
In all of this we are tiny. Will we be lifted in the wave and become wealthy or will we be impoverished in our own land with vast inflation unable to afford our homes or food any more? There are very clear examples of resource impoverishment out there in the world in countries that are resource-rich and the inhabitants devastatingly poor and their environment destroyed by greedy foreigners.
Are any of our politicians supporting the signing of huge contracts to foreign companies and governments consulting with ordinary Australians in any way at all about it? Are they giving any consideration at all as to whether or not this will benefit ordinary Australians or be disastrously destabilising and inflationary. Do we want huge numbers of mining workers flooding in from overseas and competing for our housing and social infrastructure?