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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am.

The night Donald Trump claimed victory, he celebrated with his closest friends.

Among them was Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart.

Rinehart, who describes herself as “a long standing member” of the Trump support group The Trumpettes, is not only cultivating her ties among America’s right wing political elite. She’s long been a highly influential figure in Australian politics too.

And with the Australian election just months away, Rinehart’s friendship with opposition leader Peter Dutton is more pertinent than ever.

Today, national correspondent for The Saturday Paper Mike Seccombe, on Gina Rinhehart, her money and how she uses it to shape the country.

It’s Tuesday, November 26.

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RUBY:

So, Mike, Gina Rinehart, we all know her, Australia's richest person. Her fortune, of course, was made from her mining interests. But tell me, just how rich is she?

MIKE:

Well, according to Forbes magazine, she’s worth at the most recent count, $30.1 billion, which, as you say, makes her Australia's richest person by quite a long way. Second place is another mining magnate Andrew Forrest, and he was worth slightly less than half of what Gina was worth. So she's rich, mate.

RUBY:

Okay. And so what is the story of how she amassed that kind of wealth?

MIKE:

Well, really, it's largely the luck of birth, I've got to say. Her father was an iron ore explorer, Lang Hancock. He was very politically conservative, quite an outspoken racist, in fact. In a TV interview back in 1994, he said some incredibly offensive things about sterilising Indigenous people in order that we might, quote, “breed them out”. So not a very nice man, really. And he didn't just, you know, give his awful opinions. He also gave lots of money to politicians, including hundreds of thousands to his good friend Joh Bjelke-Petersen, who was the strongman premier of Queensland in the 60s, 70s, 80s and led a notably corrupt government at the end of which a number of his ministers went to jail. So anyway, Gina has followed in her father's footsteps in business. She became executive chairwoman of Hancock Prospecting in 1992. Its biggest asset is the Roy Hill Mining Project, which started shipments to Asia in 2015. She's also got investments in rare earth minerals, in gas, in cattle and in property.

RUBY:

Okay so Gina Rinehart, she took her father's business and built on it, making ever more money over the years. Has she also followed in his footsteps when it comes to seeking political influence, Mike? What do we know about her donations?

MIKE:

Well, absolutely. She's a major donor to the conservative parties, to the Liberal and National Parties. I might add, not always as open about it as is legally required. Back in 2023, an investigation by the ABC revealed a donation of almost $150,000 to the Liberal Party from Hancock Prospecting, but routed through a third party, a little mob called the Sydney Mining Club. And it was only after the ABC began asking questions that Rinehart finally declared it. She also cultivates relationships with senior figures on the conservative side of politics. Tony Abbott was close to her. Barnaby Joyce, former leader of the National Party. Matt Canavan, probably the most prominent climate denier among the Coalition ranks. And of course the current Opposition leader, Peter Dutton in particular appears to cherish the relationship that he has with her.

Audio excerpt — Ben Fordham:

“The yet to be disclosed trip on Thursday night was so Dutton could be the star speaker at the private 70th birthday party for Gina Rinehart. Estimated Dutton was at the event for about 40 minutes before presumably getting on a redeye flight to Melbourne, where he appeared in a Friday morning campaign event for Dunkley.”

MIKE:

His office said he paid for those flights himself. And by the way, the Liberals lost the by-election. More recently we've heard other stories about Dutton flying on Rinehart's private jet, which he's defended by saying it saves the taxpayers money because she lets him use the jet for free.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“I thought that was very expensive and the cheaper option for the taxpayer was for my office to speak to Mrs Rinehart's office as to whether the plane might be available. That was at zero cost to the taxpayer.”

MIKE:

In one case last November, Dutton was flown to Roy Hill, which is up in the north of Western Australia in the Pilbara, where he gave a speech which just may have been written for him by Rinehart herself.

Audio excerpt — Peter Dutton:

“We need to hear more parents tell their children the schools they attend and the cities they live in are only possible because of the mining sector. We need to hear more teachers tell their students that the roads, the bridges and the railways we travel on have been constructed thanks to your sector.”

MIKE:

He also lauded the work that she carried out at the mine as being, quote, “a national treasure”, unquote. So he is pretty, pretty keen to keep Gina onside, I think you would say.

RUBY:

Right. Clearly some of these personal relationships they're working out well for Gina. Are there other ways that she seeks political influence, Mike?

MIKE:

She also donates to conservative think tanks, the most prominent of them at the Institute of Public Affairs, or the IPA. The IPA was founded back in 1943 by a group of prominent businessmen, including Sir Keith Murdoch, father of Rupert. And over the years it has campaigned against Aboriginal land rights, against racial discrimination laws, and particularly against measures to address climate change. As to who funds the IPA, well, it's always been very cagey about that. But back in 2018, as a consequence of a long running dispute involving the Rinehart's in the New South Wales Supreme Court, Rinehart was forced to reveal that over the two preceding years, she had given the IPA something like $4.5 million and that accounted for, you know, by various estimates between a third and a half of its funding. By billionaires standards, by the standards of Rinehart's wealth, you know, $4.5 million is not a lot of money, but, you know, it's enough to fund a lot of tendentious research. And anyway, the IPA's influence goes beyond mere money. It maintains very close links with the Murdoch media empire and also serves as kind of a hotbed, I guess you would say, for the conservative side of Australian politics. It trains up a lot of Liberal politicians. And there appears to be a level of coordination in all of this. As an example, Rinehart was linking housing shortages to immigration back in May as Dutton declared his intention to slash Australia's migrant intake. Rinehart was championing nuclear power before the Coalition embraced it. So just how far reaching Rinehart's influence is on Coalition policy kind of remains to be seen, largely because the Dutton Opposition has released so little policy to date. But as we get closer to the election, likely, you know, by next May, I think the full extent will become clearer. What we do know is that the Institute of Public Affairs doesn't act alone. It's part of a global network of conservative think tanks united by a very specific worldview, one that's shaping the future of the United States.

RUBY:

Coming up after the break, that network and what Gina Rinehart’s influence in the United States tells us about her plans for Australia.

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RUBY:

Mike, you've outlined the ways that Gina Rinehart uses her wealth to fund not only conservative political parties, but also the Institute of Public Affairs, which develops research and these talking points that end up funnelled through conservative media and laying the groundwork for Coalition policy. But can you tell me more about how the IPA, how it fits into this bigger global picture?

MIKE:

Well, the IPA is part of a global network of hundreds of conservative think tanks. It's one of eight in Australia with these global ties. The two most prominent in this country are the IPA and the Centre for Independent Studies, which was central to the disinformation campaign around the Indigenous Voice to Parliament. This global network is called the Atlas Network, comprising around 515 think tanks across 99 countries. And we've just seen a very big example of what these think tanks are able to achieve when they work together. Hundreds of them, under the leadership of the Heritage Foundation, which is another member of the Atlas Network in the US, got together to create Project 2025, which was essentially the policy road map of the incoming Trump administration.

RUBY:

Project 2025, it had a lot of bad press during the presidential debate. Trump even distanced himself from it at one point because of these plans that it put forward that included gutting the government, replacing bureaucrats with loyalists, expanding presidential power dramatically, and also the size and the role of the military. So what is the overarching philosophy or ideology that unites all of these groups, Mike?

MIKE:

Well, we got something of an insight into this back in April when a woman called Jennifer Grossman, who is the American chief executive of the Atlas Society, which is a related but separate body, hosted an event in Perth to present Gina Rinehart with a lifetime achievement award.

And before she even opened her mouth, Jennifer Grossman's attire spoke volumes, I think. She wore a biscuit coloured plain outfit, unadorned except for an enormous shiny brooch in the shape of a dollar sign above her heart. Now the Atlas Society takes its name from the mid-twentieth century book written by author Ayn Rand. The book was called Atlas Shrugged. It was a 1957 dystopian book about the dire consequences that ensue when government and the plebs interfere with the virtuous pursuit of wealth. Rand wrote a number of books in the same vein. They've frequently been criticised as elitist, racist and badly written. But Rinehart told Grossmann that she'd been a fan of Rand since she read Atlas Shrugged at age 13. And I'll quote her now, she said, “the values that were in that book I haven't shied from ever since.” And Reinhart summarised the central message of Rand's books as, “there's no such thing as a free lunch”. Rand herself, however, characterised her philosophy as, quoting her, “the virtue of selfishness”.

RUBY:

Okay, So Mike, how do you think that Gina Rinehart's admiration for this particular worldview, how do you think it's going to play out as her political influence in the United States strengthens?

MIKE:

She has incredible access over there. When the victory party was held at Mar-a-Lago after the election, there was Gina Rinehart. And it's not just her access to Trump. She's just met with Elon Musk. The details of their meeting are private but Gina Rinehart told the Financial Review that it was, quote, “a chance to congratulate Elon on his leadership to drive an office of government efficiency”. He's talking about cutting maybe one third of government spending. Rinehart said this was an approach, quot,e “much needed in Australia, too”. And this meeting with Musk raises the question, I guess, of whether Rinehart might be, you know, seeking a similar role only for Dutton. And the question was actually put to one of the teal independents, Monique Ryan on Breakfast Television a week after the US election.

Audio excerpt — Today:

“Monique, what about Gina or Twiggy come in and try and sort the red tape out here in a government efficiency?”

Audio excerpt — Monique Ryan:

“Yeah, look, it's exactly... that's exactly the corollary I was going to make Karl. You've got the world's richest man, and you've given him this position of incredible influence in the American government. I think jobs for mates is a very bad idea. I don't think that politicians should be putting their friends, their dear friends, into positions of great influence in this country.”

MIKE:

And then I rang her later and she ventured that Australia's system of government would probably not allow a formal appointment a la Musk. But she was worried nonetheless, that Dutton would take advice as prime minister from his Randian friend, Gina Rinehart.

RUBY:

Okay so Mike, what does all of this mean for Gina Rinehart's position in Australian public life, especially if the Coalition does win the next election and her friend Peter Dutton becomes the prime minister? Should we expect to see more of her and hear more of her ideas about tax and bureaucracy and immigration?

MIKE:

You know, I think it's pretty clear that she would seek to use political influence, she's trying to use political influence already. She's trying to get government policy in place that would suit her business interests and would make her wealthier.

You know, is there a risk here for Dutton in being seen to fall in line with the demands of the country's richest person? Until recently, you would have thought there was, but look at what happened in the US. When you throw enough money behind a campaign, no matter how preposterous or how obviously self-serving, an alarmingly large number of people will fall for it.

RUBY:

Mike, thank you so much for your time.

MIKE:

Thanks. Cheers.

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RUBY:

Also in news today...

Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe and her former Greens colleague Senator Mehreen Faruqi have asked the Senate to investigate the prevalence of racism and sexism in the federal halls of power, with Thorpe telling the press that parliament is, quote, “simply not safe if you are a woman of colour”

And,

The Supreme Court has found that Victoria police engaged in a, quote, “joint criminal enterprise” when they recruited barrister Nicola Gobbo to inform on her clients, including drug kingpin Tony Mokbel.

The findings, which investigated the behaviour of police and prosecutors, found that at least four members of Victoria Police worked with Gobbo to pervert the course of justice.

The outcome of this case could see Mokbel, who is currently serving a 30 year sentence, have his conviction overturned on appeal.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. Thanks for listening.

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