1. Contestations over development

Australia is a rich first world nation. In 2007–08 it had a $1 trillion economy as measured by nominal Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with per capita income of over $A50 000. In recent years mining sector revenue has constituted a growing share of the national economy, reaching about 11 per cent of GDP in 2007–08 with a value of $A119 billion (Reserve Bank of Australia 2009). The Minerals Council of Australia (2007) estimated that in 2007–08 the value of mineral exports would reach over $A90 billion and constitute 40 per cent of Australia’s commodity exports. Before the global financial crisis of late 2008, the Australian mining sector was in boom driven in large measure by the rapid industrialisation of China and India: employment in the sector had reached over 80 000 jobs by 2005–06 and was growing. Royalties paid to Commonwealth and State governments totalled $A7 billion in 2007–08; gross operating surplus in that year was $A63 billion; and in 2005–06 net profit return on average shareholder funds was 24 per cent. While some of this economic gloss may have declined in the last year, the overall significance of the mining sector to the world’s fifteenth largest economy is likely to continue in the immediate future—it is as yet unclear if the current global recession is just a cyclical downturn of the business cycle or a more fundamental and structural change to economic liberalism and globalisation.