Article by Isabel Vieira, courtesy of Business News.
Gina Rinehart has stepped up her calls for Australia to cut regulation and taxes while also borrowing from US president-elect Donald Trump with the pro-oil slogan ‘Drill Baby Drill’.
Adorned with a ‘Drill Baby Drill’ sign around her neck, Mrs Rinehart again took aim at the federal government policies she says are stifling investment in major projects during one of two similar speeches delivered over the weekend.
The mining magnate and oil and gas player recently spoke at the National Mining Day at Santos’ Moomba gas project in South Australia and then at the official opening of the $1 billion Atlas gas project in Queensland, 50:50 owned by Hancock Prospecting and Senex Energy.
After lauding her private company’s bullish investment in large local projects, Hancock executive chairman Mrs Rinehart warned stakeholders at the Atlas project of red tape sending investment dollars offshore and rendering resources projects a heavenly but non-doable wish.
“If we don’t bring in sensible policies to turn the investment flow back to Australia, what does this mean?” Mrs Rinehart asked rhetorically.
“It means yet more lowering of living standards, more record businesses closures, projects being delayed with the greatest burden of government tape and regulations our country has ever seen, 80 percent of resource projects in the pipeline becoming casualties.
“Yes, the casualties providing no future revenue, or jobs or other opportunities.
“I’ve been misrepresented in the media yet again, it is my belief that moderates don’t want to see lowering of living standards, more record business closures, government tape that forces prices up and sends investment offshore and makes 80 percent of our resource projects merely a heavenly, but non-doable wish.”
That 80 per cent figure references analysis by the Minerals Council of Australia outlining the “challenging investment environment in Australia” due to “poor policy settings”.
The industry lobby group said 80 per cent of projects on the federal government’s resources and energy major projects list were abandoned, pointing to stifling settings.
Business News’ recently unpacked the paucity of new resources projects in Western Australia, in a year largely defined by mine closures and cutbacks.
Mrs Rinehart told the Queensland crowd Australia needed an equivalent of Mr Trump’s newly promised government division to be named the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE.
That proposed advisory department, touted to be led by Tesla and X founder Elon Musk among others, would aim to slash government spending and streamline processes.
She also highlighted Mr Trump’s plan to not only slash red tape but to also cut the corporate tax rate in the United States to 15 per cent – versus 30 per cent in Australia.
Mrs Rinehart reiterated she was a big fan of the ‘drill, baby, drill’ slogan rolled out by the president-elect in his pledge to lead an oil production boom and cut energy prices.
It comes after Mrs Rinehart, a long-time backer of Mr Trump, spent the days following the election meeting with Mr Musk, according to reports by the Australian Financial Review.
Fellow billionaire Andrew Forrest told the COP summit earlier this month he prefers the phrase ‘build, baby, build’ in reference to green energy ambitions being pursued by Fortescue.
“I’m a big fan of, ‘drill, baby, drill’. I was wearing that in the USA and on Friday for National Mining Day along with ‘dig, baby, dig’,” Mrs Rinehart said at the Atlas plant opening.
“But out here in Australia these words are becoming timid whispers.
“These days some like to claim that our country can run on sunbeams and windmills alone.
“By all means put these on your own properties if you wish, but don’t force it on us or taxpayers when the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine on solar panels.”
Days earlier, Mrs Rinehart rhetorically asked delegates at South Australian event: “don’t you just love the saying ‘drill baby drill’.”
She also implored the crowd not to be frightened to call for ‘make our bank accounts great again’.
In that speech, Mrs Rinehart called for duplicated state and federal government departments to be dismantled in a bid to reduce the number of approvals needed to get projects across the line.
She said government expenditure and waste needed to be slashed to enable tax cuts in Australia.
“Cut out the duplicated federal departments, have the courage to sell the ABC radio, and close the ABC TV like the opposition leader in Canada, Pierre, has announced he will do,” Mrs Rinehart said.
“Cut out expenditure on the Environmental Defenders Office, sell the pot plants and artifacts from all the departments and agencies offices (let them bring in their own), these are just some of many opportunities to cut expenditure and wastage to make way for tax cuts.”
