Gina Rinehart, chairwoman of Hancock Prospecting, and richest woman in the world, is a strong advocate of free-market policies.
Photo: Bloomberg
Mining billionaire and media investor Gina Rinehart wants the mining industry to become assertive about its importance to the national economy and educate Australians that it is saving the nation from a Greece-like debt crisis.
In comments likely to add to her controversial public image, Mrs Rinehart will argue in a speech on Friday that the income generated by mining and other resource companies is essential to pay off Australia’s national debt. “The industry needs to keep repeating this and standing up for itself,” she says in a pre-recorded speech to the Australian Mines and Metals Association.
“It needs to keep reminding Australians this – that without mining and its related industries this country has no hope of repaying our record debt without facing the problems Greece and other countries faced with overspending and consequent debt traumas.
“Plenty of Australians know this in a casual way. But what few seem to properly understand – even people in government – is that miners and other resource industries aren’t just ATMs for everyone else to draw from without that money having first to be earned, and before that, giant investments made.”
Singapore a great example
She wants Australia to borrow from the economic policies of Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore and use low taxes to encourage investment and development. She calls for the creation of special economic zones across northern Australia, arguing it has the natural resources Singapore lacked.
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“In contrast, we’ve been saddled with bad government policies that make us uncompetitive, when we could instead make the north a productive food bowl and source of minerals, as well as a centre for medical care, tourism and services for not just Australia but our Asian neighbours,” she says.
She says it is astonishing that Aboriginal leaders argued Woodside Petroleum and the Western Australian government were “morally obliged” to support a $1.5 billion compensation package even though a $40 billion gas plant near Broome had been shelved.
“This is spending the money of a resource company without giving even the company itself the chance to first earn it,” she says.
Free-market approach is best
“And this strikes me as so symbolic of where we are as a country.” Mrs Rinehart, who is the largest investor in Fairfax Media, which publishes The Australian Financial Review. has a gibe at left-leaning journalists, suggesting they listen to a recent speech by New Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch about free markets.
“Try to consider that not only is a free-market approach the most effective economically, but importantly, the best morally also, as poverty and less opportunities are usually not the best for people, especially those in poverty,” she says.
“Tax increases can destroy business and that means less taxes and fewer jobs. And less opportunities. It is amazing that this point still needs to be made. Too many of our governments seem to have had their thoughts clouded by six record years of revenue. They seemed to think the ATM would never empty, and never need refilling.”
She harks back to former Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke Petersen, for axing death duties. Sir Joh was a kindred spirit to her late fathe, mining magnate Lang Hancock.
This story first appeared on The Australian Financial Review.
Gina Rinehart: Be more like Singapore and stop taking mining for granted
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