There is a view that a mining boom means that the exchange rate rises, so import-competing manufacturing contracts, and there is little benefit apart from raising taxes on mining profits. This ignores the broader income gains that result from resource reallocation.
In a dynamic economy a growing high-productivity sector will pay to attract skilled workers and resources from overseas and from the existing economy. That pushes up costs in the existing economy across all sectors and the lowest productivity industries contract as a result.
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