Have mooted that scenario a long time ago,my thoughts would be...

Have mooted that scenario a long time ago,my thoughts would be to make the steel right beside the mining hubs in W.A. rail line to QLD bring coking coal over take steel back,W.A. has massive gas reserves to provide the energy a stone's throw away from the mines, could also still export ore as well, only answer I got from people supposedly much smarter than me is our labour costs are too high. I'm sure the whole idea it's a bit more complicated than that,but on face value it makes total sense to value add our raw commodities instead we are just the worlds quarry with royalties and mining jobs the crumbs we get thrown by multinational companies