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Iron ore magnate Gina Rinehart has donated $8 million to the Royal Flying Doctor Service to buy a state-of-the-art aircraft that will help save lives in the most isolated corners of the State. The Rinehart Medical Foundation and Roy Hill will contribute $4 million each to buy and fund an aeromedical fit-out of a PC12 NGX plane in what is one of the most significant donations to the RFDS. Last month, Ms Rinehart was crowned Western Australian on the Year not only for her contribution to WA’s mining and agricultural sectors but for her generosity to various medical and health organisations. RFDS Western Operations chief executive Judith Barker said the organisation had a $90 million program to replace 12 planes by 2030. Ms Barker said the RFDS had a long association with Ms Rinehart and her mother, Hope Hancock. “We’re really grateful for the support that we get from her, Roy Hill and the foundation who recognise that the RFDS is there to support them and their endeavours in rural or remote areas,” she said.

Hancock Prospecting group chief executive Garry Korte has called for magnetite ore to be carved out of the Federal Government’s safeguard mechanism as he warns of “unintended consequences” of the policy. Billionaire Gina Rinehart’s company is concerned that magnetite iron ore is not distinguished from hematite under the Government’s safeguard mechanism despite its potential to help the steel industry lower emissions. Mr Korte said the creation of a separate magnetite iron ore variable under the safeguard mechanism was critical to encourage investment in magnetite in Australia. “Without (the variable), the safeguard mechanism will result in the offshoring of investment and reduction in value-add opportunities in Australia,” he told The West Australian.

Hancock Agriculture chief executive Adam Giles discusses free-trade agreements, animal welfare and what’s ahead for the S Kidman and Co brand, today on The Australian Ag Podcast. Mr Giles travelled to the UK and Europe last week as the first Australian beef was being served up to British consumers under the recently signed free-trade deal. He was accompanied by Hancock owner, billionaire businesswoman Gina Rinehart, and met with consumers, importers and distributors to trumpet the benefits of Aussie beef Hancock Agriculture operates one of Australia’s biggest beef cattle herds across more than 3.5 million hectares of NSW, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, with the portfolio including the famed S Kidman and Co cattle stations.

Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen will release the full text of the mandatory code of conduct governing the country’s gas industry within days, a document that will go a long way to determining whether several new developments materialise. Australia’s east coast gas market is facing a material shortfall in the next few years as traditional supplies run dry and proposed new developments struggle to secure regulatory and social licences. Senex Energy, owned by South Korea’s Posco and Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, earlier this year suspended its proposed $1bn Atlas project in Queensland, while Cooper Energy has delayed a go-ahead to expand its Otway gas project off Victoria.

The Australian Rowing Team were delighted to host their Patron Mrs Gina Rinehart AO at the European Training Centre in Italy yesterday. Her leadership and support, along with funding provided from Hancock Prospecting, has enabled these athletes to be at their best as they prepare for Paris 2024 and make Australia proud. Thanks Mrs R and thanks Hancock Prospecting.

BHP boss Mike Henry has doubled down on criticism of the Federal Government’s crackdown on labour hire laws, arguing it is taking Australia in the “wrong direction” and will make the country less competitive. “An industrial relations system that delivers productivity, flexibility, and competitiveness to drive job creation and wage growth. Predictability and reduced risk. Under those conditions, the capital will flow,” Mr Henry told the World Mining Conference. “Worryingly, some policies are taking us in the wrong direction and are going to make Australia less competitive: this includes recent and proposed changes to industrial relations legislation, particularly the same job same pay legislation and multi-employer bargaining.”

Thank you to our team members who took up the challenge in 2022 to help raise $3M for Telethon.

Strong commodity prices and WA’s powerhouse resources sector have played an “outsized” role in boosting the Federal Government’s coffers, with the Budget surplus ballooning to $19 billion at the end of May. New figures from the Department of Finance show a surge in company and personal tax payments underwriting a stronger than expected result. Receipts from the resources sector was one of the biggest contributors. Mr Albanese argued strong export links would be paramount to ensure unemployment levels remained low. “One in four Australian jobs depend on international trade and that ratio is only going to increase as the economic transformation under way in our region, the fastest growing region of the world in human history, gathers pace,” he told the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce on Friday.

Roy Hill, a world-class mining operation in Western Australia’s Pilbara region representing the next generation of integrated iron ore mining, rail and port projects, employs approximately 2,700 staff across its mine permanent village (MPV) site alone.While the provision of premium entertainment was a key requirement, Roy Hill also required a communication platform that could act as an extension to their intranet to share essential information with on-site teams that could be managed from HQ or by teams on site. They were also keen to implement the new solution with minimal upgrades to their current infrastructure. The challenge was being able to deliver an innovative, best-in-class premium entertainment and engagement solution at Roy Hill’s MPV village, with approximately 2,700 rooms, while maintaining a reliable service within a low bandwidth environment.

GINA Rinehart backed Senex Energy said it might supply glass manufacturer Orora with 14 petajoules of gas over a 10-year period, as it continues its stare down with the federal government over market intervention. Senex said the conditional supply agreement would come into effect from January 2025 and provided offtake for its proposed Atlas project expansion in Queensland’s Surat Basin. However, this is only provided that the expansion of Atlas goes ahead. The gas producer halted its expanded field development when the federal government intervened in the market introducing a price cap of $12 a gigajoule for the domestic market.

“Canberra Hill is not a wealth creator or nation builder, but a user and waster of taxpayer funds, an inefficient disperser of taxpayers’ funds, and its record shows a place which fails to understand economic realities,” she said. “This lack of economic realities has resulted in policies which restrict our pensioners, students and even veterans from working as much as they may choose, while there is a widespread worker shortage, a worker shortage crisis, affecting many businesses and supplies.” At a time of record revenue, thanks to mining, one would expect government services to be provided abundantly and efficiently. Unfortunately, the opposite is the case. Notwithstanding the money flowing into state government coffers, the standard of the provision of services, which is the key role of state governments, has never been so poor.

Hancock Agriculture chairwoman Gina Rinehart said the summit was an opportunity for governments to better understand those living and working outside our cities. “Eighty-five per cent of Australians live in large urban locations, but we should not forget the engine room of our country, that being outside the cities in mining and agriculture and all of those who work in our bush,” she said. “They in turn make possible jobs for the many businesses the primary industries support; the truckies, the shops, even accountants, legals, tax advisers and many more.”