By Patrick Gibbons
Australian Financial Review, Sydney
Tuesday, May 26, 2026
Sometimes budget papers hide in plain sight critical information. And this year's was no different. Buried among the usual forecasts for iron ore, coal, and LNG export earnings was a commodity Canberra rarely talks about: gold.
For decades gold has occupied an awkward place in Australia's economic story. Iron ore built the budget surpluses. Coal powered Asia. LNG was the great energy export hope.
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In contrast, gold was often treated as little more than a legacy industry, somehow secondary to the "real" mining sectors driving national growth.
Gold has quietly become Australia's second-largest export earner, generating an estimated $61 billion in export revenue in 2025.
In a world of geopolitical instability, sovereign debt concerns, and central banks scrambling for safe-haven assets, gold has surged back to the centre of the global financial system.
Prices have shattered records, at times trading above $US5000 an ounce this year. The recent market volatility triggered by the US-Iran conflict has taken some heat out of the rally. But the bigger macro story remains firmly intact.
The latest edition of the "In Gold We Trust" report reinforces what markets are beginning to price in: Gold's resurgence is being driven not by speculation but by a combination of forces -- rising sovereign debt, persistent fiscal deficits, central bank accumulation, geopolitical fragmentation, and growing doubts about the long-term credibility of fiat currency management. ...
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