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Farmers fear their ability to do basic tasks like fencing or deep ripping will become tangled in costly red tape when important new legislation designed to protect WA’s Aboriginal cultural heritage takes effect next month. The Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2021 was passed through State Parliament in late December in the wake of Rio Tinto’s infamous blasting of Juukan Gorge more than two years earlier.

The next government official or politician who turns up in regional WA wanting to “inform” or “consult” with the locals better be careful. The “stakeholders” are getting restless. Our regional businesses are vital to the interests of WA, providing billions of dollars of export income and sustaining thousands of jobs from Kununurra to Esperance. How about governments back off for a while, or even better, reduce red tape, cut taxes and let sustainable, profitable industries get on with business with less government intrusion.

Super proud at Bannister Downs as this National competition attracted over 1000 product entries Australia-wide!!!
Wonderful to be able to accept this award with our amazing partner, leader in Agriculture and patriotic Australian, Mrs Gina Rinehart AO.

At Saturday night’s ball in Sydney’s Crown Casino in Barangaroo, the focus was on raising funds for his charity to research brain cancer. NRL legend Benny Elias snapped up the star lot at the auction, paying $160,000 for two days with mining magnate Gina Rinehart at the Ayana Estate in Bali. It was was billed ‘An exclusive experience with Gina Rinehart’ and will see Elias and a guest whisked away on a private chartered flight to her luxury Bali hideaway in November for a gala dinner with industry giants. The following day, another private flight will then whisk them to Port Hedland in Western Australia for another gala dinner under the stars at the Roy Hill rail site at her mining facility, before another private flight back to Perth.

Women play an essential role at all levels of the Hancock Group. Executive Chairman, Mrs Gina Rinehart, is an industry leader, providing a role model and inspiration for other women. We are proud to be an organisation committed to developing opportunities for women across our operations.

The issues that most concern me in thinking about Australia’s need for reform are not the external developments that seem to get most attention, like the prospect of global recession or resurgent protectionism, or even the “climate emergency”, as it is now called. The biggest challenges are ones we’ve created for ourselves. I don’t just mean the inflationary fallout from Covid, which the Treasurer has recently called the “defining challenge of our time”, but policies that have damaged our economy’s ability to cope with change, to be competitive and support economic growth. These and other findings went over pretty well with both sides of politics at the time, as I recall. So the policy outlook seemed hopeful. How on Earth then did we end up with the costly hotchpotch of measures we’ve got today? How did we get to a situation in which electricity will not only become a luxury but an unreliable one?

Gina Rinehart may have made her fortune in mining, but she has also put her stamp on Australian agriculture. That was clear when she stepped forward to buy the famous S Kidman and Co holdings in 2016, making her Australia’s biggest landowner, controlling more than 10 million hectares. Ms Rinehart has since been one of the most active purchasers of Australia farmland, but in the past few years has diluted her property holdings. However, she still owns a commanding six million hectares, running about 240,000 cattle, with an eye on new purchases along the east coast. Ms Rinehart, who is not reluctant in making her views known, is a strong advocate for Australian agriculture.