Scrap all regulations for small businesses, mining magnate Gina Rinehart urges
Australia's richest person, Gina Rinehart, has urged all government regulations be lifted for small businesses, and said more people should defend the mining sector because the nation could not survive without it.
In a wide-ranging speech to the Small Business Association of Australia (SBAA) given in Darwin on Saturday, the mining magnate worth a reported $20 billion praised the work of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, who she said doubled the workload of public servants in his country.
She said that in India Mr Modi also cut red tape by allowing any company with fewer than 100 staff be free from government regulation and instead be allowed to self-regulate.
"No more filling in unnecessary government paperwork or waste of time and money reports to government, or fines for being late," Ms Rinehart said according to speech notes.
"This is what we also desperately need in Australia," she said.
Ms Rinehart attacked anti-mining activists and those who opposed development.
"My question to the short-sighted is, do you really think we could survive without mining?
"If they are honest, the answer is no," she told the crowd, which included Federal Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce and NT Chief Minister Adam Giles.
"I doubt we have ever seen so much misinformation and negativity towards Australia's most vital industries and when they can't win on facts, they get personal," she said.
Ms Rinehart has been in the media recently because of the efforts by her children to have billions of dollars paid to them that they claim they were denied because she allegedly transferred mining interests out of a family trust.
She also told those in the audience to contact the Government, the media, radio talkback and to send letters to newspapers to speak up against the anti-development message.
Laws that allow for jail terms for those that do not comply with business regulations should go, Ms Rinehart said, and instead non-violent offenders should be able to continue to work without being incarcerated.
Rinehart accused of 'rampant self-interest'
Anti-nuclear campaigner with the Australian Conservation Foundation, Dave Sweeney, slammed Ms Rinehart's call for less regulation, and said it was based on rampant self-interest, not Australia's national interest.
"It is a threat to environmental protection, it is a threat to worker health and safety, it is a threat to wages and conditions, it is a threat to Indigenous people's control over country," Mr Sweeney said.
"There are a whole range of very serious problems with this idea," he added.
Although media were prevented from hearing Ms Rinehart's speech, the ABC obtained a hardcopy of the notes.
Prior to entering the event Mrs Rinehart was asked about the efforts by her children to have billions of dollars paid to them that they claim they were denied because she allegedly transferred mining interests, worth a reported $5 billion, out of a family trust, but she declined to answer.
