Treasurer Wayne Swan said on Tuesday that Australia stands to be one of the biggest winners as global economic growth centers on Asia.
Queensland alone looks set to benefit from a cumulative 70 billion Australian dollars (64 billion U.S. dollars) investment in resource projects over the next five years to 2013/14, "plus the flow-on activity that this investment brings", he said.
Speaking at the Queensland Growth Management Summit in Brisbane, Swan said Australia could not afford to be complacent.
"We can't sit back and hope our good luck holds out," he said, adding the challenge now was to take that momentum and build something lasting.
However, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott accused the Australian government of doing just that.
"The risk with Rudd government's hard decision allergy is that Australia will take for granted Chinese demand for our minerals," Abbott said.
"We could become a modern version of 16th century Spain or 20th century Argentina squandering our natural advantages because our leaders would rather enjoy today than prepare for tomorrow."
He said Australia survived the global financial crisis thanks much more to the reforms of previous governments than to the spending spree of the current one./.