Let's say Australia had bought 10% of gold production, for 50...

Let's say Australia had bought 10% of gold production, for 50 years, say 30 tonnes per year, then Australia would now have a treasure of 1500 tonnes of gold, as a support for the general trade, and the dollar, within the economy. If it had been for 100 years, then we would have 3000 tonnes of gold. We would now be living in a different nation.

Regarding the gas fiasco. My understanding is that the construction company/gas company had their own financial arm, and they switched all the profits from its Australian base, to its international financial arm, through high interest rates. Even Turnbull was so humiliated by the situation, he threatened to rewrite the contracts.

At some point Australia will have to face the situation, where we will have a hole in the ground, where the resources used to be, and a mountain of financialised debts. Sorry kids, we sold your destiny, and try not to think of us, as the 'barbarians from history'!

"If the American people ever allow the banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent that their fathers occupied.” Thomas Jefferson

But let me guess, you will be a long time dead, so who cares??