Periodically, in a boom it tended to reach a peak of perhaps 3 per cent of GDP. This peak was about 8 per cent – nearly three times the size of the ‘normal’ peak, and easily the biggest such surge for over a century. The resources sector was doing 40 per cent of the nation's total business capital spending.
And, as you know, a big share of that was occurring here in WA. On other occasions, these types of events have ended up being very disruptive for the national economy.