In a speech today to the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia, Treasury Secretary Dr Martin Parkinson noted the role of fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) work arrangements in spreading the benefits of the resources boom across Australia:

The increasing accessibility and cheaper cost of air travel has seen a proliferation of fly-in fly-out commuting arrangements between mining sites and cities. This has enabled the incomes earned in the sector to be spent in areas which do not have an immediate exposure to the mining boom.

In mining booms of the past, people would relocate to the mining sites creating towns and communities in the process but then these settlements would be hit severely when the boom ended and the lifeblood of the area disappeared.

Dr Parkinson also highlighted that the air routes experiencing the strongest growth in traffic over the year to July 2011 were predominantly those involving a destination close to resources sector operations (see table reproduced below). The high growth rate on the Cairns-Melbourne route is unlikely to be mainly related to the resources boom and must be a rebound from a big drop in domestic tourism visits and flights to Cairns in 2009-10.