That is one of the reasons why monetary policy has been set to support growth in recent years. We expect mining investment to bottom out in coming quarters, as the last of the large LNG expansion projects completes. After that, it will probably increase a little, as resource firms invest to maintain their production capacity at current levels.
The scale of that ‘sustaining investment’ is nothing like that of the boom of the past decade or so. But the important point is that mining investment will no longer be dragging on growth. While there is spare capacity remaining, it is important for policy to support above-trend growth and work that spare capacity down.