LAUREN WILSON From: The Australian August 26, 2012 1:16PMAUSTRALIA'S mining boom is "not even halfway through" a senior minister said, as Labor moved to reassure the public over the nation's resources future.
Trade Minister Craig Emerson said there was a lot of mining investment in the pipeline.“We're not even half way though it,” told ABC TV's Insiders program.
“What we are seeing is prices come off a bit from very high levels, but we still have more than half the investment to go and we've got the production to come on stream so that is very good news for Australians,” Dr Emerson said.
Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten said he did not accept “at all” that mining would cease to make an important contribution to the economy.
The comments came after Resources Minister Martin Ferguson last week declared “the resources boom is over”, as BHP Billiton decided to shelve the Olympic Dam mine expansion.
Mr Shorten told the Ten Network's Meet the Press that while commodity prices were easing off, his department had projected that another 100,000 jobs would be created in the mining industry over the next five years.“The point is that Mr Ferguson is right, we might have reached the peak in prices, but the other point beyond that is the volumes are still increasing and there are still plenty of projects,” he said.
“I don't think that the contribution that mining is going to make in jobs and economic output for Australia has at all peaked.”But the Coalition's small business spokesman Bruce Billson said the mining tax and the carbon tax were impacting on the investment decisions of mining companies.
“The Gillard government wanted to take some momentum out of mining, that was their policy purpose,” Mr Billson told Sky News's Australian Agenda.
Tony Abbott last week sought to blame the carbon and mining taxes for the Olympic dam decision, even though neither were mentioned in BHP's statement of explanation.
“With 100 per cent certainty the decision to postpone that project had nothing to do with the mining tax as Mr Abbott falsely asserted,” Dr Emerson said today.
But Mr Billson said BHP had carefully crafted its statement not to blame the mining or carbon taxes because it was wary of Labor.
“Mindful that Labor has this form of going after people if they say things that are critical,” Mr Billson said.
“They know that if they say things that the government doesn't like ... you've seen the way the government reacts.”
Mr Billson said the South Australian Labor party had almost had a “hissy fit” about the decision and said BHP had to regain trust after the decision.
“What you see is this pattern of the critics of Labor become the targets of their venom.”
Additional reporting: AAP______________________________________________
Just want to add something, ...
More than 2/3 of WA is yet to be explored. 
