Shame Australian's see little to no benefit, all of the profits are off shored and there are little royalties paid back to the Australian people.
There were jobs around in the 2010’s during a mining “construction” boom, but once the mines were built 90% of the jobs went too.
This doesn’t seem very plausible to me. You are proposing that there could have been an alternate universe where, for example, instead of sending iron ire to China for steel production, Australia could have become the steel producer. This has many assumptions - firstly, that China would buy Australian steel as opposed to finding another ore producer and doing what they do now anyway. You also assume that this would be a good business in Australia. Quite possibly, the economics don’t play out due to energy/labour costs.
Why? Social stability, and the security of the party. Even if it's less efficient to import the ore and coal, the steelworks keeps people employed, particularly young men who might otherwise grow restive.