Housing in australia has a holy cow which has to be defended at any cost. If you see the major job creators in last decade, its housing and its periphery sectors, so if this chunk goes for a freefall there would be a very negative loop back in to the economy with rising unemployment much like every where else in developed countries which recently had housing crash. Remember we don't have a much of a labour shortage in mining its rather skills shortage.So those unemployed elsewhere may not be easily ported to mining.
