News

Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, has earned some high praise after making some big calls on what the government can do to help Aussies out with the rising cost of living and dealing with noisy public activism.

Gina Rinehart has issued a grim warning that Aussies face huge price hikes and fresh food shortages unless the burden of climate change policies are lifted from farmers. During an address in Bali on Tuesday, the mining magnate made the ominous forecast to mark National Agriculture & Related Industries Day, of which Mrs Rinehart is the founding patron. Australia’s richest person, who owns millions of farming hectares, said governments need to cap what agriculturalists spend on achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions to $200,000 – or the entire nation faces dire consequences.

Fuel excise cut “could happen from the first of December and then, if you must, put it back to usual after Christmas, the longer after Christmas, the better,” Australia’s richest woman says.Australia’s richest woman has called on the government to give the nation a “Christmas bonus” in the form of a petrol tax excise cut at a time when people are struggling to deal with spiralling costs and said the “woke” agenda threatened living standards. “Every few dollars counts for people in tough times,” Mrs Rinehart told this masthead in an exclusive interview. “With the stroke of a pen, the government could deliver minor short-term relief to millions by cutting the petrol tax for households.””It could happen from the first of December and then, if you must, put it back to usual after Christmas, the longer after Christmas, the better.”

And, as has been reported widely, changing IR policy which will make it more difficult for agriculture, mining and many businesses to create the revenue our hugely in debt country needs. If this scenario is not changed, our youth should understand we are creating a nightmare for them – that they will be struggling with high taxes for the rest of their lives. Many will need to forget about the Aussie dream of owning their own home, as they won’t be able to afford such an investment after meeting government tax burdens. Even in schools, governments have been content to not educate children and grandchildren well. In the current high school national curriculum, which mandates what every school child in Australia is taught, iron ore is referenced only twice. Yet climate change and renewable energy are mentioned 48 times. Mining, coal, and iron ore do not receive even one mention in the entire high school economics and business curriculum!

Mrs Rinehart said governments “seem to forget” that “modern resources and agricultural industries underpin human flourishing”, while reigniting her push for the Federal Government to mark two days in November as national days for the two sectors. “For all the platitudes we hear about supporting the agricultural and resources sectors, their actions show the opposite,” she said of governments. “Platitudes and press releases don’t lift a single tonne of any mineral out of the ground.” Mrs Rinehart said the growing burden of red tape – including looming “huge increases” to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act — and increasing regulation around net zero emissions, were evidence that government actions defied their supposed support for the sector.

21 November 2023.

Australia has long been a nation of primary producers, of farmers and miners who go out into regional and outback areas and contend with whatever nature may throw at them to provide the food, fibre and raw materials that we need to survive and thrive. We have cultivated agriculture that feeds and clothes Australians and tens of millions of people around the world. And we have taken risks and developed the minerals that have enabled higher living standards across Australia and the world. Thanks to our primary industries and the many businesses they support, we live in one of the wealthiest countries that has ever existed, and Australians today have among the highest standards of living ever experienced by human beings.

“If increased regulatory burdens cause new mining projects to be delayed or cancelled, Australia will be unable to satisfy the rising iron ore demand created by net zero targets,” Hancock Prospecting chief executive of group operations Gerhard Veldsman said. Gina Rinehart has warned controversial industrial relations reforms could push mining away from Australia to countries with lower environmental standards.

Ms Rinehart has famously sold off many of the enormous Kidman stations across central and northern Australia to continue her switch to feedlotting for her Wagyu and Santa Gertrudis brands. “Hancock Prospecting remains committed to increasing its investment in the agricultural sector,” the company states in its annual financial report produced this week. The company said the substantial profits made from its beef operations “are being re-invested in high quality properties as opportunities of value are identified”.