Saturday, June 16, 2012

Who is Gina Rinehart?

She is an Australian and the world's richest woman, the eighth richest individual. Her income is £1 million every hour. AN Australian business magazine estimated her fortune at £18.1 billion.

Rinehart wants new laws to allow cheap labour to be imported from overseas, tax breaks for mining, and a special economic zone to encourage development in the country's north.

Rinehart is developing huge coal projects in Queensland's Galilee Basin, which will produce more greenhouse gases than the whole of the Queensland economy currently. Rinehart's response to these concerns was to fly out one of the world's most prominent climate-change sceptics, Lord Christopher Monckton, for a speaking tour. Rinehart has purchased 10 per cent of the Ten television network and nearly 13 per cent of Fairfax Media, publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne's The Age, making her the single largest shareholder in one of Australia's most powerful media groups.

 The Deputy Prime Minister, Wayne Swan, has labelled her a threat to Australia's success, democracy, press freedom and its egalitarianism.
Tasmanian Senator Bob Brown, the Australian Greens ex- leader, condemns her as a "selfish, anti-public multi-billionaire", who mounted her father's truck "not to defend the Australian ethos of a fair go, but to defend her dividends".

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