Advertisement
Australia markets closed
  • ALL ORDS

    8,153.70
    +80.10 (+0.99%)
     
  • ASX 200

    7,896.90
    +77.30 (+0.99%)
     
  • AUD/USD

    0.6517
    -0.0019 (-0.28%)
     
  • OIL

    82.73
    +1.38 (+1.70%)
     
  • GOLD

    2,234.80
    +22.10 (+1.00%)
     
  • Bitcoin AUD

    109,567.05
    +2,529.45 (+2.36%)
     
  • CMC Crypto 200

    885.54
    0.00 (0.00%)
     
  • AUD/EUR

    0.6033
    +0.0002 (+0.04%)
     
  • AUD/NZD

    1.0903
    +0.0023 (+0.21%)
     
  • NZX 50

    12,105.29
    +94.63 (+0.79%)
     
  • NASDAQ

    18,268.09
    -12.75 (-0.07%)
     
  • FTSE

    7,972.32
    +40.34 (+0.51%)
     
  • Dow Jones

    39,734.99
    -25.09 (-0.06%)
     
  • DAX

    18,504.67
    +27.58 (+0.15%)
     
  • Hang Seng

    16,541.42
    +148.58 (+0.91%)
     
  • NIKKEI 225

    40,168.07
    -594.66 (-1.46%)
     

Gina Rinehart hits out at Australians again: Welfare is not a bottomless pit

Gina Rinehart hits out at Australians again: Welfare is not a bottomless pit


Mining tycoon Gina Rinehart has taken aim at Australia’s welfare recipients for dragging the country into debt.

In her column in the latest edition of Australian Resources and Investment, Ms Rinehart said Australians were living beyond their means and attacked the political left for spending the “bottomless pit””of revenue generated from mining taxes and royalties.

"Australians have to work hard or actually harder and smarter to create the revenue to be able to pay that bill. Something has to give, we can’t do it all."

"I can already hear the left boiling with rage that I dare challenge their ‘bottomless pit’ and the belief that money doesn’t have to be earned before it is spent mentality.

Related: Gina Rinehart gets richer but falls off richlist - here's why

Ms Rinehart, worth an estimated $19.89 billion, echoed Treasurer Joe Hockey’s call for an end to the age of entitlement.

“This ‘Age of Entitlement’ and its consequences is creating problems for all of us, our children and our grandchildren,” she wrote.

Ms Rinehart also predicted negative reactions and personal attacks on her for the comments.

Related: Let prisoners pay their way out of jail, says Rinehart

“I can already hear the left boiling with rage that I dare challenge their ‘bottomless pit’ and the belief that money doesn’t have to be earned before it is spent mentality. More nasty twisted articles will appear, forests and splinters of them. But every day Australia goes further into debt with no clear planning operation to get back even close to where we were,” she wrote.

She also praised the late former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and quoted one of her favourite lines from her, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

“Great quote. Let’s learn from it,” she wrote.

 'Miners are not ATMs for the government'


In May 2013, Ms Rinehart hit out at the political system saying the Government had an unhealthy reliance on the resources sector and has been treating it like an ATM.

"What few seem to properly understand - even people in government - is that miners and other resources industries aren't just ATMs for everyone else to draw from without that money first having to be earned and, before that, giant investments are made," she said in a video recorded for the conference.

"It is incredible that after the last six years of record commodity boom times, we now find the once lucky country in record debt, with the federal budget tipped to deliver yet another deficit, to further increase our record debt."

In 2012, the tycoon used a rare video appearance to repeat her warning that Australians needed to work harder to "compete with Africans who will labour for less than $2 a day".