Gina Rinehart has proposed six ‘common sense’ steps to improve the lives of Australians, including embracing nuclear power and cutting limits on work hours.
The mining magnate, who is worth an estimated $37.41billion, also wants to see government red tape cut, farmers subsidised for helping the country to reach climate goals and better infrastructure in regional areas.
Even though she called for the urgent introduction of nuclear power, probably her most controversial idea was to end ‘the limit on work hours’ to help veterans, pensioners and university students.
‘Imagine the smiles when we can finally fill those jobs in the bush, and see hospitals and health centres’ hours and effectiveness improved,’ she wrote in The Spectator.
Probably her most controversial idea was to end ‘the limit on work hours’ to help veterans, pensioners and university students
Gina Rinehart has proposed six ‘common sense’ steps to improve the lives of Australians, including embracing nuclear power and cutting limits on work hours
Ms Rinehart’s plans were published in the magazine under the heading ‘Opening the gates, Ideas for an even greater country.’
Her lead idea was to put nuclear power ahead of renewables ‘for the well-being of this nation’.
‘It’s time to realise we need nuclear power in this country.’
‘Instead of punishing many farmers with bird-killing wind generators and massive solar panel stretches, we need to urgently allow clean, safe, nuclear energy for the well-being of this nation.’
Ms Rinehart used a ‘scientifically fact-checked’ joke about radiation to make that point, attributed to Hungarian-American scientist Edward Teller, known as ‘the father of the hydrogen bomb’.
The joke began by saying a man would receive ‘only a little more radiation’ if he stood next to a nuclear power station for a year than he would get from being in bed with his wife.
‘If a man stood next to that same nuclear power plant for a year, and then went home to share a bed with two wives, he’d get more radiation from sharing that bed than standing next to the nuclear power plant all year.’
Mr Teller was portrayed as a brilliant but rogue physicist in the recent epic blockbuster Oppenheimer.
Ms Rinehart wants to see farmers subsidised if they spend more than $200,000 on switching to electric vehicles and equipment as the nation tries to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
Rinehart made it clear how much her controversial father, Lang Hancock ‘s entrepreneurial spirit has influenced her
‘Do our politicians understand the extent of the financial burden this will place on everyday farmers?’ she asked
‘Switching to electric vehicles, including lawn mowers, motor bikes, utes, 4-wheel drives, tractors, harvesters, trucks, bulldozers, graders and front-end loaders will cost a fortune, on top of which will be required approximately $650,000 for solar plants with huge batteries for when the sun doesn’t shine, and solar panels to replace multiple bore pumps, essential for daily water.’
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Ms Rinehart also urged governments to return money earned by regional Australia for the economy back to the regions, partly by improving internet access.
Another way this could be done is by building ’24 hour, 365 day’ airstrips across the outback to service ‘the fastest Royal Flying Doctor Service planes’.
Mining towns should also get much better hospitals, she said.
‘We should have the best-equipped and most luxurious hospitals in Newman, Tom Price, Dampier, Cape Lambert, Port Hedland and in other mining towns, thanks to the revenue we create in the Pilbara and other mining areas.’
A big focus for Ms Rinehart was cutting government ‘red tape’, both federally and in Western Australia.
‘After four years, all government tape automatically goes, and bureaucrats in each relevant department must sign their names and provide reasons as to why the tape should be reinstated.’
One of her more detailed plans is for a series of special economic zones to be introduced, starting with northern Australia.
At the heart of that plan is a cut in taxes for people investing in business in Northern Australia and for those who work ‘north above the 26th parallel’.
She wants to see special economic zones, with similar benefits to business in the regions, spread to other regions after that.
‘There are now more than 8,000 of these types of economic zones operating successfully around the world. Yet none in Australia.
‘I don’t know of a better way to improve the lives of regional Australians.’
Rinehart made it clear how much her controversial father, Lang Hancock’s entrepreneurial spirit has influenced her by beginning and ending the column with references to him.
‘I’m not the first to come up with the idea of cutting taxes for those employed in or investing in the north. My Dad did so, too.’
Ms Rinehart wants airstrips operational 24-hours a day, 365 days a year in the outback
She acknowledged her father ‘made himself unpopular at times’.
While he is acknowledged as one of Western Australia’s mining greats and built the family’s fortune, he said Aboriginals should be sterilised.
But, Ms Rinehart said, her father was ‘standing up for what he could see was in the nation’s best interests.’
‘My Dad was a huge and exceptional contributor to our north, to our state and to this country.
‘We certainly need more common sense policies, like the removal of government restrictions he was able to achieve to open the gate and improve Aussies lives.’
