march 3 reuters  australian shares rose for a fifth straight session on thursday driven by mining and energy stocks on back of strong commodity prices and as global equities rebounded after the us federal reserve chairman assuaged worries about aggressive rate hikes the spasx 200 index axjo ended 05 higher at 71514 rising 23 since its near 3 drop on feb 24 broader asian stock markets eked out gains following wall street after fed chairman jerome powell said rates would likely be raised by only 25 basis points this month and the war in ukraine had made the outlook highly uncertain theres a quite what we would call a relief rally in the market said brad smoling managing director at smoling stockbroking miners axmm led the gains in australia climbing 29 as iron ore futures were buoyed by growing hopes of improved demand in china after reports of a possible easing of covid19 curbs in the worlds top steel producer iron ore behemoths bhp bhpax and its rival rio tinto rioax climbed 36 and 37 respectively energy stocks axej soared 26 hitting their highest since february 2020 after oil prices surged above 116 a barrel as trade disruption and shipping issues from russian sanctions over the ukraine crisis sparked supply worries sector majors woodside petroleum wplax and santos stoax rose 3 and 17 to scale their precovid levels asx will hold very well going through the volatility simply because weve got a big resource and energy and commodity sector smoling said in other news authorities in australia issued more orders for people to leave their homes after heavy rain triggered flash floods in its largest city with officials warning of worse to come read more in new zealand the benchmark spnzx 50 index nz50 closed 1 higher at 122114 reporting by navya mittal in bengaluru editing by subhranshu sahu