Revealing Rinehart's hard-right agenda

[Matilda]

Gina Rinehart's recent string of media acquisitions, including stakes in Ten Network and Fairfax Media, has had the media salivating for over a month now. What makes Rinehart's investments so much more intriguing is that the secretive mining heiress, Australia's richest woman, still won't say what she plans to do with them.

Behind the scenes, Rinehart's mining lobby group, Australians for Northern Development and Economic Vision, offers a glimpse at the policy stance she’ll be pushing for in 2011. And the make-up of the organisation indicates that Rinehart's intentions could be more extreme than anyone has guessed.

ANDEV’s powerful membership, topped by Rinehart and including notable figures such as Hugh Morgan and Ian Plimer, reads like a who’s who of ultra-conservative Australian business.

Publicly, the group says it aims to create a new economic zone in the north of Australia, where miners would be exempt from a number of taxes, and be given the opportunity to import temporary foreign labour.


http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Rinehart-Fairfax-Media-Ten-Network-MRRT-mining-pd20101222-CCQYQ?OpenDocument#.Tu6VyFykVqA.twitter


This woman is scary! You wonder if anyone in Canberra, on either side of politics, has the balls to take her on.