I have been thinking about this table I put up the other day. It merely confirms my view that the mining industry is an historical economic distortion that is vastly overrated in its importance. Employing less that 2% of the Australian workforce (see below) and only contributing about 6% of GDP yet receiving about $10B in subsidies annually, it is perennial parasite that governments continually suck up to in order to curry favour with a handful of very wealthy people. And actual mining companies are an idiot tax on investors.
