BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  The gradual realisation that the world was willing to pay a lot more for the commodities we had in abundance, and that this was likely to be true for some time, led to a significant increase in the demand for Australian assets tied to the production of commodities.
This reflected a significant increase in the expected return to capital in the resources sector. There was also an increase in the demand for Australian labour and materials, to help build and then operate the new extraction, production and transport facilities that have been, and are still being, put in place in the resources sector.