Australian mining boom generates huge wealth "It is quite remarkable what is happening in some of these remote areas," he told The Daily Telegraph. The traditional areas in Sydney and Melbourne are still high earning. They have not gone backwards. It is just that the mining areas have moved past them. Miners working on remote gas and oil rigs can earn about £150,000 a year, while cooks, drivers and administrators around the mines can earn more than £65,000. The highest-earning area, a part of Western Australia with postcode 6710, includes the tiny towns of Cane, Onslow and Peedamulla. Personal incomes there are more than triple those in the rest of Australia, where average personal incomes are about £20,000 and average household incomes are about £42,000. The boom has also led to large concentrations of males in remote mining regions of Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory where energy and mining projects and military bases are located. The postcode of 0829 in the Northern Territory, just outside Darwin, has a population that is more than 84 per cent male - the highest percentage in the country. The areas with the highest proportion of women tend to be around universities. Mr James said the boom in Australia, fuelled by growth in China and other parts of Asia, was only just beginning. "It is the modern day equivalent of the gold rush but it has the potential to last a whole lot longer," he said. It is not like a gold boom where the price accelerates and then falls in a heap. China's industrialisation is the biggest the world has ever seen. People in China are only just getting cars and washing machines and so on. The price of minerals may drop but the demand for them will be ongoing.