Article by Jason Gregory, courtesy of The Land.
Agriculture and mining magnate Gina Rinehart has raised concerns about the growing tangle of red tape and bad government policies being piled on farmers and pastoralists.
In a speech in Port Hedland on Friday, the nation’s richest person also suggested that more people from primary industries should nominate for political office.
“We’ve heard our farmers and pastoralists are struggling, we’ve heard this for some years now, but what are we actually doing other than loading them with more government tape and more bad policies, as though we want to end an industry we daily rely upon,” she said.
“An industry whose people and high quality produce we should be proud of.”
She added that sensible, responsible action, along with a reduction in taxes she claims strangles economic growth, was needed to lift the nation up and not more and more expensive, intrusive government.
“This will mean we need more people from our primary industries to stand to be elected for our parliaments and truly stand up for our essential primary industries, and the many related businesses they support,” she said.
“The size, expense, and intrusion of government has all grown massively in recent times, adding to businesses costs, record business failures, rising housing costs and our own living costs, and delaying revenue earning projects. This is a danger to our living standards. A danger we have to recognise and diminish.
“It should never be forgotten that governments only consume wealth, they don’t create it. We need to help change the mindset because too many seem to have forgotten this.”
The executive chairwoman of Hancock Prospecting also called for the creation of the nation’s first special economic zone, similar to those that operate in 8000 places around the world, to be carved out above the 26th parallel to stimulate growth across regional northern Australia.
Workers in the area would then receive greater tax rebates to encourage them to live and save and invest locally.
Mrs Rinehart’s personal wealth soared to more than $50 billion this year, largely on the back of the performance of her majority-owned Roy Hill iron ore mine in Western Australia. It is one of several mining investments by the company that also include lithium, rare earths, magnetite, copper, potash and gas.
The 70-year-old has also invested heavily in farming with S.Kidman & Co. pastoral stations scattered throughout Australia, which concentrate on high-value Wagyu production, and Hancock Agriculture’s significant portfolio of farmland and agribusinesses.
Meanwhile, she also took a sideswipe at federal and state governments during her speech on Friday for “choosing to throw away” Australia’s access to reliable and abundant energy by switching to renewables.
“The truth needs to be known, the so-called sustainable energy can’t underpin our base power load requirements, the sun doesn’t always shine, wind doesn’t always blow, the additional capital to try to hook this in will be humongous,” she said.
The call comes as federal and state governments are struggling to bed down the wind and solar farms and transmission lines that will be spread across regional Australia to form the backbone of the renewable energy system after coal-fired power stations are switched off.
The scale of Labor’s renewable rollout is aiming to lift the share of renewables in the national electricity market to 82 per cent by 2030.
“In 1800, using humans and animals, it took 10 minutes of human labour to produce a kilogram of grain,” Mrs Rinehart said.
“In 2021, with mechanised farming using fossil fuels and fertilisers produced by fossil fuels, it requires only 2 seconds to produce a kilogram of grain.
“This means there has been a 300-fold increase in the efficiency of grain production per human hour.”
Mrs Rinehart also backed the Opposition’s nuclear power plans.
She believes that, in terms of how often they were able to produce electricity over a given period of time, hydropower (50 per cent of the time) was a little better than solar (25pc) and wind (40pc) power.
However, coal and natural gas fired thermal power plants were better again with capacity factors of between 70 to 90pc because they can generate electricity consistently as long as fuel is available.
“And although it’s not here – well not yet – nuclear power would be the best of the lot operating over 90pc of the time as it requires less maintenance and is designed to operate for longer stretches,” she said.
Mining multinationals may be set for a huge windfall if the Coalition wins the forthcoming election and a nationwide ban is lifted on uranium mining – the caged bull of the Australian stock exchange.
Meanwhile, Charles Sturt University energy and circularity senior research fellow Simon Wright said regional communities facing a tsunami of renewable energy projects must be compensated through profit-share arrangements with energy companies.
He said the regions were tired of being taken for granted and community ownership of projects could help overcome a prevailing trust deficit between energy companies and regional communities.
Former energy infrastructure commissioner Andrew Dyer said the “prospecting” nature of some energy projects had created uncertainty and anxiety in rural communities and a general distrust of pole and wire transmission, wind and solar development companies.
