You have to look at the processing our our Iron Ore from the Top down.
10% of our IO exports is say 80 million tons (still exporting 90%) 80 million tons of IO + 28 mil tons of met coals produces say 40 million tons of finished premium steel. IO & Coal input costs say $500 AUD/ton Export value say $4000 ton
Result: additional $140 billion a year to Australia in both balance of trade & GDP (keep in mind that the Current China trade barriers to Aus exports to China will cost us at least $40 billion/year)
(a) Now to apease the pessimists (we cant doers) if we only break even after paying the interest on capital then as aa country we have won big time in GDP & Trade Surplus.
(b) if we make a nominal profit , say 10% of sales, then that $14 billion can go into reducing Aussie PAYE tax. if we extend the SEZ model to other metals & Ag Products, then we could, over time, se a benefit similar to Saudi Arabia where there is no PAYE tax.
The other alternative is the Norweigan model which squirrells away resource profits into a National Soverign Pension Fund to benefit all (unlike our Future Fund that only benefits millionaire pollies and the top end of te Civil Service )
The SEZ model depends on economy of scale & a Government designated industrial area with no tax, minimal red tape and the ability of businesses within the SEZ to employ low cost guest labour sourced globally like Saudi Arabia or Singapore etc) This is called countering the "Dutch Disease' (In economics, the "Dutch Disease" is the apparent causal relationship between the increase in the economic development of a specific sector (for example natural resources) and a decline in other sectors (like the manufacturing sector or agriculture)
We already have 'Guest Labour" in the form of Backpackers and recently Islander Farm workers to compensate for the loss of backpackers due to Covid-19.
