ANZ boss Mike Smith is urging business leaders to get on with accepting slower economic growth, and give up an obsession with iron ore.
The steel making commodity's value has dived in the past year and recently hit its lowest level in a decade, slashing government revenue and forcing miners to cut jobs and costs.
But Mr Smith says miners could never had expected record high prices to go on forever, with China's economy slowing.
"In many ways, this is sort of self inflicted," he told a Bloomberg business lunch.
"Is it any surprise that commodity prices have dropped with the sheer amount of supply?"
Australia's most senior bank boss said there is more to the economy, and exports like tourism, education and agriculture, can fill the void left by the fading resources boom.
"I think that we're obsessed by iron ore, and if that's not working then the whole economy's not working," he said.
"That's not true."
The economy has good prospects, with China set to become the largest source of foreign investment by 2030, representing a ten-fold increase on current levels, he said.
"Business needs to lift its sights and talk up the Australian economy," Mr Smith said.
In the short term, slower economic growth needs to be accepted as a new normal, along with political instability in the age of social media, he said.
"These are issues that are not easy to deal with and we as business people just have to understand that is the way it is, and frankly, we just have to get on with it."
"It is easy to become transfixed by the issues of the day - softness in the resources sector, the state of politics, business confidence, and even the availability of slippers in my office."
Mr Smith declined to criticise Prime Minister Tony Abbott for ditching an election promise to cut corporate tax by 1.5 per cent.
The government is instead flagging a small business tax cut but has yet to provide details.
"We can complain about all these things and changes and 'this is going to happen, and this was promised and that wasn't'," he said.
NSW Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian and ANZ chairman David Gonski were among the audience.
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