Article courtesy of InDaily.
Pauline Hanson, Guy Sebastian and Gina Rinehart have been spotted at a gala dinner celebrating Australia’s mining industry.
National Mining and Related Industries Day 2024 was held in November at Santos’s Moomba gas field in South Australia’s Cooper Basin, with speakers including Rinehart and opposition leader Peter Dutton.
At one point in the proceedings, Rinehart can be seen donning a sign emblazoned with the words, “dig, baby, dig”, while she also wore a dress featuring the slogan, “Mining ❤️”.
National Mining Day patron Tad Watroba can also be seen wearing a sign with the infamous Republican slogan, “drill, baby, drill”.
Hundreds of guests were flown in on charter flights from Adelaide to attend the evening gala, including Sky News hosts Rowan Dean and Rita Panahi.
During their flights, attendees heard speeches from various bigwigs, including Hancock Prospecting CEO Garry Korte, Hancock Prospecting CEO (projects) Sanjiv Manchanda, former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce and One Nation leader Pauline Hanson.
Upon arrival, Santos provided a tour of its gas plant, before guests were ushered into the event marquee, with its panoramic views of the site.
Event MC Gerhard Veldmans then introduced keynote speaker and National Mining Day founder Gina Rinehart, while guests dined on 2GR Wagyu carpaccio and 2GR brisket and sipped on South Australian wines.
Veldmans, who is CEO of Roy Hill and CEO (operations) of Hancock Prospecting, wore a pink hat decorated with the motto, “Keep Mining Great”.
“Shouldn’t we really have a month or two given our industry’s contribution,” quipped Rinehart as she began her speech.
“And don’t you just love saying, ‘drill, baby, drill’,” she said.
“Essential for getting gas to supply homes and industry around Australia. Well, maybe it’s just a little timid whisper out here in Australia now, as it’s getting so darned hard to ‘drill, baby, drill’.”
Throughout her speech, Rinehart bestowed the “benefits” of fossil fuels and the “disadvantages” of renewable energy, bemoaning what she said were declining living standards in Australia due to solar and wind’s growing popularity.
“These days some like to claim that our country can run on sunshine and windmills,” she said.
“By all means put these on your own properties if you wish, but stop forcing this on us taxpayers, when the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always make it to solar panels.”
Rinehart labelled politicians, bureaucrats and billionaires who support clean energy as an “expensive net-zero cult” who hypocritically rely on fossil fuels for travel.
She also praised US President-elect Donald Trump, who she called a “drill, baby, drill president”, saying that we should follow in his footsteps and establish a D.O.G.E department to cut red tape and taxes.
At one point, she also referenced Trump’s “Make America Great Again” motto, telling attendees, “We need to make Australia great again”, to applause from the audience.
Throughout the evening, attendees also heard from Dutton via a video conference call, National Mining Day patron Tad Watroba and Santos CEO Kevin Gallagher.
“Put simply, the revenue generated by mining helps to build Australia, care for Australia and to defend Australia,” said Dutton.
“And yet this reality is overlooked by the current federal Albanese government… it’s now a party that panders to social and environmental activists, to inner-city Greens voters, and of course to the big union bosses, who want new power in national life.
“Consequently, this national government has pursued a hostile agenda towards mining and it has sidelined the national interest in the process.
“Friends, I make this promise, a Dutton coalition government will be the best friend the resource sector in Australia will ever have.”
Speakers lamented the difficulty of receiving approvals for mining projects, with Santos CEO Gallagher at one point complaining about the uncertainty surrounding its Barossa Gas Project.
“We also learnt just how far activists will go to pursue their anti-fossil fuels ideology, with the court finding that the Munkara case involved confection and that Indigenous constructions were distorted and manipulated before being presented to the court,” he said.
After the speeches, a recognition award was given to Professor Ian Plimer, a geologist and member of the Australian Climate Science Coalition who is a professor emeritus at the University of Melbourne.
To conclude the evening, entertainment was provided by singer-songwriter Guy Sebastian, with a video showing One Nation leader Pauline Hanson busting her moves on the dancefloor.
