Rinehart Calls for Transfer of Australian Capital to Alice Springs
Australia and Asia's richest woman is making her voice heard again in national affairs. She proposed in article in the Australian Resources and Investment Magazine slated to be published March 1 that the Canberra no longer be considered the capital city, but to move major government offices to Alice Springs.
Ms Rinehart, who was the talk of the town two weeks ago because of her ongoing court drama with her three estranged children and recent acquisition of shares in Fairfax Media, had previously spoken against other government policies, particularly the mining tax and carbon tax.
She said that government departments and advisers need to understand better business in the outback. She said government offices that deal with natives such as the Department of Aboriginal Affairs should be in Alice Springs. The billionaire questioned why is the Department of Defence not based in the country's north.
"We need our government departments and government advisers exposed to more of Australia: regions outside of Canberra and the New South Wales coast, where they usually holiday for their annual vacations," ABC quoted Ms Rinehart.
The bulk of Ms Rinehart's iron ore and coal mining empire, estimated at $20 billion, is in Western Australia and northern Queensland. However, she recently forayed into media publishing causing speculations that she wanted to have a bigger say in national policies.
"We need to ensure investment is welcome, we need business and, yes, we even need the 'hated entrepreneurs' if we want our standards of living to continue or improve," Ms Rinehart wrote.
"Neither is this the decade for us to be lethargic in Australia; thinking we can always live off our current resource-induced good fortune, sending entrepreneurs, investment and business offshore," she added.
Her article is expected to elicit response from various sectors.
However, another piece written by Ms Rinehart has been constructively criticised by a creative writing expert. Professor Dennis Haskell of the University of Western Australia suggested that the billionaire check her punctuation and grammar.
His basis is the poem by Ms Rinehart titled Our Future, which he observed was not written with artistic merit in mind. The piece actually even hit the Australian government for its lack of support for the resource industry.
The poem is engraved on a plaque attached to a 30-tonne iron ore boulder outside the new Coventry Square Markets in Morley. Because of the piece's public prominence, the professor suggested some improvements.
"She seems to stop believing in full stops a certain way through the poem," Mr Haskell was quoted by ABC.
He found one phrase "You strive to build the world" too vague and lacks meaning. The professor advised the billionaire, tongue-in-cheek, to focus on her day job instead.
"As a poet she's about as good as I am at mining.... She won't make as much money out of poetry, that's for sure," Mr Haskell said.