Give Me Missiles: Gina Rinehart and the Pathologies of Mining
Power should only ever be vested carefully, and certainly not in the hands of mining magnate Gina Rinehart, a creature so comically absurd as to warrant immediate dismissal in any respectable commentary. But Australia’s richest human being demands to be noticed, given the insensible influence she continues to exert in press and policy circles. Rants of smelly suggestion become pearls of perfumed wisdom, often occasioned by large amounts of largesse she disgorges on her sycophantic following.
Of late, she has been busy in her narcissistic daftness. At the National Bush Summit held last month, she proved particularly unstoppable. While advertised as a News Corp project backed by a number of Australian corporate heavies (NBN, CommBank, Woolworths and Qantas), Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting left its unmistakable mark. The events offered a Rinehart Hall of Mirrors, self-reflecting her purchased eminence. She funded much of it; she structured it; she brought the necessary tyrannical boredom in tow.
Before remarking on some of the observations, brief mention should be made about the source of Rinehart’s animal spirit. One should never condemn, outright, the children for the sins of their parents. But she is the exception that proves the rule. Her father, Lang Hancock, was an elemental Australian version of a 20th century conquistador, an enterprising plunderer of the land and equally immune to cultural refinements and such novel notions as human rights. With barbaric clarity and genocidal suggestion, he proposed in 1984 that unassimilated members of the Indigenous populace be given the following treatment: “dope up the water up, so that they were sterile and would breed themselves out in the future and that would solve the problem.”
At the Port Hedland leg of the Bush Summit, Rinehart fantasised about having the military styled comforts offered by the US firm Rafael Advanced Defense Systems in 2011 to Israel. The Iron Dome system, used to shield Israel from rocket attacks, could just as well be deployed in Australia. But instead of focusing on protecting civilians, the batteries would be invaluable in protecting Rinehart’s own mining assets in the Pilbara.
A gorged ego, the country’s perceived welfare and mining interests are all fused in an unsteady mix of justified plunder under the cover of military protection for Hancock Prospecting. “It is no good having the resources of the Pilbara unless we can ship it out. Hence, we should have defence to keep our railways and ports open, and defend our sea lanes.” To the defensive dome could also be added “war drones, and smart sea mines.”
The next target in this spray of barking madness was government regulation – at least the sortthat impairs her extractive practices. With brattish petulance, she even claimed that Canada had treated the mining industry with greater aplomb and respect, despite having, in her words, a “socialist” Prime Minister in the form of Justin Trudeau. Various taxes, such as the Fringe Benefits Tax, should be ditched, given the damage it was doing to Northern Australia.
Others in the primary industry market such as farmers and pastoralists also deserved relief from the stifling burden of red tape. “The size, expense, and intrusion of government has all grown massively in recent times, adding to businesses costs, record business failures, rising house costs and our own living costs, and delaying revenue earning projects.” Some of these observations are far from untrue, but coming from Rinehart, they suggest a grotesque self-interest at work.
In Bendigo, Victoria, her video address fumed at the state of Australia’s “woke” education system. Australia’s children and grandchildren, some “as young as three in pre-schools”were “being let down” by insidious practices, including lessons on the evils of the police and plastics. “They and others in school classes are no longer taught to be proud of our country, quite the opposite.”
Such vulnerable creatures, made to feel anxious about the effects of climate change, were also being deprived of a true understanding of mining, coal and iron ore. “In the entire high school curriculum iron ore is referenced only twice,” she sulks. “Yet climate change and renewable energy are mentioned 48 times.”
All liberal democracies face similar challenges: how to make sure the thick of mind remain distracted and resistant to riot, and keeping the malevolently wealthy contained within the realm of accountability. Rinehart’s commentaries suggest a desire to escape that orbit of accountability, operating as an unelected politician’s wish list. And being unelected is exactly how she likes it. The compromise and messiness of parliamentary debate and the making of policy would prove too excruciating and intolerable. Far better to intimidateelected representatives from afar, using platoons of paid-up lobbyists, consultants and cheering propagandists. When feeling generous, give them a confessional platform to ask forgiveness for their sins.
Were the fossil fuel lobby to be equipped with actual weapons, a coup would not be off the cards. A few Australian prime ministers have already had their heads, politically speaking,served on a platter to the mining industry, with Rinehart’s blessings. A depressing conclusion can thereby be drawn. Australia is a country where rule is exercised by those outside parliament. It’s Rinehart on minerals and metals and the Pentagon and the US military complex on weapons and military bases. What a stupendous state of affairs Australians find themselves in.
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Return to home pageA dangerous sort of madness.
What would she know about anything other than extracting minerals for her own aggrandisement? As with most very rich people, she sees the world through a narrow prism of unrestrained self-interest.
Coincidentally (not?) Rhinehart (allegedly a donor to IPA) was part of the CIS & Advance Voice No campaign; both IPA and CIS are in the global fossil fuel, faux ‘free market’ & social Darwinist Atlas Koch Network (in US shares donors with Tanton Network and Koch anti-Ukraine Heritage is partnered with Abbott’s Danube Institute in Hungary).
The author links to the same network by often citing Charles Koch’s John Mearsheimer as a geopolitical expert in blaming Ukraine and NATO for being invaded by Russia; CIS ran a webinar featuring Mearsheimer late ’23…….
Jesus, what a piece of work is Gina the unlovely.”Purchased eminence’..accurate description,for a friendless ogre,not counting her purchased admirers.She would be better advised spending some of her filthy wealth on a new countenance and a friendly,humanist disposition. Her appearance in the background of our Olympic swimmers in Paris, like some benevolent,bloated benefactor haunts me still.
A very sad,sorry individual.No amount of loot could change it.
Pig-iron Bob, may remain in the ground despite his worshipers attempting resurrection. But after he enfranchised his Gargantua who begat Ms Pantagruel and the Flying Pig-iron-Monster, the gouging and gorging has lead to a now unstoppable flow of piss and wind.
Oh the once beautiful Oz forever now imperiled by those that gather by Ms Pantagruel’s ear.
Time to audit her courtiers, Beetroot & Spubucket, for their views on their darling mentor’s comments. One presumes that they’d be in hearty agreement with [cough cough] Dr. Ironheart, the Whinestone Cowgirl.
So she wishes protection from missile attack on her mines. Er…who would likely to have such an ambition? Er…of course…CHINA! So the Chinese are apt to destroy the mines which provide them with much needed minerals….which they are happy to continue to buy? Good grief, what a half-wit she is.
She’s a nucking futcase!
Being rich makes you smart, didn’t you know…. and being richest make you smartest just ask Gina.
she suffers the right thought that all Aborigines, unemployed, teachers and the poor are against her way of life and should be silenced.
Wam,
Ken what ye mean, but grammar pls, grammar. Wouldn’t want anyone thinking ill of ye.
We all know Dutton is Gina’s puppet but even Albanese is cowed by this abominable creature.
I wonder if Gina Rinehart should be blamed or pitied, for her appalling attitudes. Did she have any chance to develop
integrity or decent values, with Lang Hancock as her father?. Perhaps now long forgotten are Lang Hancock’s dreadful attitudes to Aboriginal people. Binoy here gives a perfect example of this. There were many more : – https://antinuclear.net/2024/09/06/racist-statements-by-mining-magnate-lang-hancock-and-claims-that-he-had-aboriginal-children/. But Hancock was equally callous about his non-Aboriginal workforce. There was the case of Christine Vos, who developed fatal mesothelioma while working in an office at Wittenoom. She was exposed to asbestos pollution coming in the window, but was denied compensation because she was not actually mining asbestos. Hancock’s comment on her case was “Well, someone has to pay the price of progress”.
Inhale this:
… a creature so comically absurd… rants of smelly suggestion become pearls of perfumed wisdom… her purchased eminence… immune to cultural refinements and such novel notions as human rights [her father]… a gorged ego… spray of barking madness… brattish petulance… grotesque self-interest… the malevolently wealthy… operating as an unelected politician’s wish list…
You are now hallucinating, but can you tell whether it’s Jabba the Hut or the Jabberwocky?
Speaking of Jabba the Hut. He bears a striking resemblance to our dear “Dr’? Blackheart.
She also reminds me of a sort of female version of the bloated orange windbag from the ‘The Land of the Freaks and The Home of The Brainless’.
The fat frau of the west has all the charm of an overloaded nappy, but, cannot be buggered to even appear human, sensible, decent, relevant or collaborative because large loads of Money in the Kick means that intellect, heart, soul, wisdom, etc. are irrelevant entirely. Her existence is a galactic fact, her magnificence is akin to useless brainless royalty by being born into status, being able to buy loyalty from ambitious would be gainers. Australia has been reduced to low levels of achievement, awareness, enlightenment through its pollution by humanoid types with older centuries in cultural domination of thought processes. We have such primitives in media, management, political life, financial manipulation, and, especially in mining and the attitudes it seems to engender. Miners acquire, pollute, despoil, do short cuts, pay buggerall tax really, ignore nature, corner influence, establish loyal cronyism, love ignoring sense and decency. How romanist, spanishy, primitive, careless, hunnish, short term it all is.
Dr Gina knows what ails you because Gina is a doctor and being Trump smart as well can solve all your problems.
You’re all poor and sucking up all the cash that rightly belongs to Doctor Gina. So give up, hop in a coffin and leave Doctor Gina alone.
The enormous carbuncle on the Australian behind.
Kerri,
I guess that makes Der Spud the escapee supporating stinking pustule from a charnel pit currently residing on the arse of Australia.