Article by David Southwell, courtesy of Daily Mail Australia.
Gina Rinehart has urged every Australian to take an interest in the nation’s future and become more politically active.
The country’s richest person, 70, said it’s up to everyone to pressure politicians to raise living standards with policies that are unabashedly ‘pro-Australia’.
‘Australians should be constantly questioning our governments, are your policies going to lift our country up, or are they going to drag us down? Will your policies improve our living standards, or drag them down?,’ she told The Australian.
Mrs Rinehart, who is executive chair of her company Hancock Prospecting, said that sadly many policies pursued by federal and state policies ‘drag as down’ and are not in the ‘best interests of Australians’.
Previously she has often called for a reduction in government red tape and taxes that she claims strangle economic growth.
Recently Mrs Rinehart even claimed China’s communist government was doing a better job that Australia’s because it was pursuing ‘reliable electricity production’ including building ‘many coal-fired power stations and nuclear ones’.
She has also called on Australia to follow China’s lead in establishing so-called special economic zones, particularly for northern Australia, where ‘government burdens’ would be reduced to encourage investment.
Another bugbear has been what she called ‘lowering education standards’ by adding woke agendas, making students anxious with climate-induced global extinction propaganda, [and] teaching its students not to be proud of their country’.
However, there was one politician that Mrs Rinehart gave a glowing report card, federal opposition shadow Indigenous Australians minister Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.
Mrs Rinehart said the Northern Territory Senator, who spearheaded the successful ‘No’ referendum campaign to reject the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament last year, was one of Australia’s most ‘influential people’ of the last 60 years.
She said Senator Price had shown courage and leadership ‘to speak up for truth about marginalised Indigenous Australians, in particular women and children, and brave endeavours to drive change to help them’.
Earlier this year Mrs Rinehart’s personal wealth was estimated to be a jaw-dropping $50billion, which was up from $37.1billion last year.
The surge was largely due to the performance of her majority-owned Roy Hill iron-ore mine in WA’s Pilbara region which posted a net profit of $2.7billion in 2023.
Mrs Rinehart also invests in farming through the Hancock Agriculture arm, which has in recent years focused on high-value Wagyu beef production and owns vast tracks of land through the S. Kidman & Co cattle stations.
Along with other holdings in high-end residential real estate Mrs Rinehart has recently bought iconic Aussie fashion brands Driza-Bone and Rossi Boots.
