Amid all of the noise about our economic health deteriorating with metals prices, Australia’s 21-year unbroken run of economic growth continues. The GDP growth figures today confirm that in the three months the end of June were still strong: up 0.6 percent for the quarter for annual growth of 3.7 percent.

The numbers are strong, but perhaps the challenges lie ahead, with the remarkable slow-down in iron ore and copper prices contributing to BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals all deferring expansion plans. Fortescue’s admission that at $90US a tonne for iron ore (compared with $150 a tonne earlier this year) it is unprofitable (taking into account its expansion plans) should ring plenty of alarm bells.

And given that much of Australia’s growth (and with it the commensurate pressures on wages and employment causing the two-speed economy) will come from the development of resources projects, not the production from them, the announcements from these key miners is important.

The Government continues to show a brave face in a growing body of evidence that the spark in the economy – mining – is starting to dim. The Government, however, has in its back-pocket massive Liquified Natural Gas projects such as Gorgon and the Browse Basin that are already in advanced stages. And while oil and gas prices have shown no recent signs of weakening, so the Government will continue to talk up its Budget and its prospects.

In the middle of all this today, Gina Rinehart made a rare public appearance – via video on the Sydney Mining Club website in which she pleaded the case for improved productivity so that Australians such as her can continue to invest. She noted the diminishing competitive advantages that Australian miners have while (controversially) observing that African workers are prepared to work for $2 a day.

Julia Gillard dismisses Rinehart’s summation of the economic of mining. Stated alone it might sound as though Rinehart is a billionaire advocating the exploitation of workers being paid $2 a day. Instead, if you listen to the whole speech and not just the sound-bite, you discover the country’s wealthiest woman is accurately describing the growth in the African iron ore industry fuelled by Chinese capital anxious to pop Australia and Brazil’s stranglehold on this key commodity.

If Gina Rinehart is rueful, it is that the message seems to fall on deaf ears in Government. And this was the key point to emerge from the Prime Minister spending all her time when speaking to the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies in Perth outlining her vision for the education system, rather than addressing the key points they want to hear: how will costs, including wages, in Australia be constrained. How will competitiveness improve?