By Gavin Wendt, Founding Director & Senior Resource Analyst MineLife Pty Ltd

As Australians we're pretty much 'relaxed and comfortable' types, as former PM John Howard once famously described us. For the most part this reference seems fairly innocuous ? and it is.

Where the problem however arises is with our politicians ? from the Greens and Labor side of politics. The relaxed and comfortable notion instead takes on a darker tone ? one of complacency.

Its ultimate manifestation is the attitude of the Labor-Greens coalition with respect to our resources industry, which is very much under attack. Meddling politicians seemingly want to interfere and hamstring the one sector of our economy that's actually working well ? the mining industry.

At a time when we as a nation should be doing everything in our power to encourage investment in our sector, our politicians instead seem hell bent on doing everything they can to drive investors away.

Whether its ad-hoc restrictions on coal seam gas, the mining tax, the carbon tax, or greater red and green tape on resource projects, Australia's federal politicians and bureaucrats seemingly don't have enough hours in the day to dream up ways of hampering the one industry that's kept us out of recession.

The mining industry is the factor that differentiates us from the economic basket-cases in Europe and elsewhere.

Politicians point to the cleverness of their sizeable spending programs in helping to keep Australia out of recession. The truth is that if it was spending that kept the financial wolves from the door in this country, the United States and Western Europe would not be in the financial mire that they are now.

Throwing money at the problem has not helped ? in fact it's made things worse. After all, most overseas governments have spent a much greater sum in terms of stimulus measures, representing a much larger proportion of their respective GDPs.

The key differentiating factor between us and the economic strugglers has been the fact that we are fortunate enough to have a strong, vibrant and efficient mining industry. A mining industry located just a relatively short shipping-distance from the world's modern-day economic powerhouse, China.

Rather than embracing the resource sector, to envious politicians in Canberra the mining industry is viewed as a necessary evil. Senator Bob Brown's persistent comments about the industry are both na