Anyone who has lived for a decent amount of time in Western Australia’s capital will be familiar with being “Perthed”. At parties, on first dates, during workplace icebreakers, you can more or less set your watch by how long it takes two newly introduced people to find out where they have a mutual close friend or social group in common somewhere in the giant country town*. This, as the events of the weekend demonstrate, applies to the highest levels of power in the state.
Anyone who bristled at our characterisation of departed Western Australian emperor premier Mark McGowan as someone far too ensconced in big business to offer voters any true alternatives might wish to consider literally his final act in the role.
On Friday, he awarded Western Australia’s Person of the Year — decided by Celebrate WA, a non-profit sponsored by BHP, the WA government and Lotterywest — to the humble and under-recognised comedian, poet, Trumpette and mining billionaire Gina Rinehart.
Australia’s richest person was recognised for her “outstanding contribution to the state and national economy” — we take back our cynicism, she should win EVERY year! — and led the crowd in a round of applause for McGowan, who she said would be greatly missed.
The state’s only daily paper, The West Australian, reportedly breathlessly:
Mrs Rinehart not only developed a successful mine, she also, in a world first, had massive mining trucks and trains painted pink in support of those suffering breast cancer, and in support of women in the mines.
Mrs Rinehart prefers to keep a low profile but is a champion of philanthropy and giving back to the community. Her ongoing support has financially aided several medical, sporting, educational, health and community organisations.
The Nine papers over the weekend reported that Australia’s most decorated living soldier and current PR avalanche Ben Roberts-Smith had sent a legal threat to the billionaire, warning he would sue an Afghanistan veteran (and a relative of Rinehart) if the ex-soldier spoke ill of him. We wonder if The West‘s owner and McGowan texting buddy Kerry Stokes would have picked up the tab for that case too?
*In case you think I’m exaggerating, I just scrolled down the list of other recipients and was happy to see that Ben’s brother Andrew, who I met at a house party in 2005, is doing so well.
That’s putting pink lipstick on a pig.
The problem is the first eight words, “Mrs Rinehart prefers to keep a low profile”. She doesn’t.
Certainly not when her obese carcass was hoisted by forklift onto the back of a ute to rant in defence of her poor mine employees against Krudd’s weak-as RRT in the dim dark past.
Wouldn’t it be gratifying if we could read, just once, that one of our billionaires had made a ‘personal’ donation of an amount that REALLY constituted a financial sacrifice… just as any that I might (and have made) make of $100 for a year to a deserving cause is a significant gesture for me? It is but one corrupting element of our ‘system’ that these monied people can be so publicly acknowledged and awarded for making corporate donations that represent precisely nothing of a personal financial sacrifice for themselves. And not to forget that all such donating realises a tax benefit to the donator, does it not? in which case, who has really contributed the funds?
The early Christians had a principle that one’s generosity was not measured by what one gave, but by what one had left over. Not a bad principle, which would exclude all the ‘philanthropic’ billionaires that the MSM enthuse over.
Gina Rinehart is not a ‘person’. She’s a miner with a heart of polluted dam tailings gifted her by her equally nonperson father. On which planet is she a worthy recipient of any award for being nice? Seriously? Painting trucks pink? How about she cut production of the very substances that can lead to the development of cancers instead of paying lip service to the treatment of them once they have appeared and instead invest her obscene wealth in programs that actually achieve something?
Iron ore causes cancer?
Polluted air, water, environmental microparticles. Name your poison. Of course iron ore is not in itself cancer-inducing. Just the slipshod manner in which it is gouged out of the ground by inadequately protected people and all the crap left behind without rehabilitation to damage the health of those still trying to live on their land.
And is iron ore all she has made her small bickies from? I mean, apart from the wealth she inherited from her father at the expense of everyone else in Australia because noone thought to protect Australia’s assets from rapacious individuals with no moral compass and who therefore were given licence to do whatever they wanted with the land they screwed out of the local Indigenous populations at a time when most people thought that was perfectly ok because they weren’t even considered valid Australian citizens at the time, instead being classified as fauna. And now some nice people with too much money made from the sweat of others’ labour want to deny those same Indigenous people the right to have an opinion on how their lives should be lived? Oops, sorry. A slightly different but clearly not unrelated rant….
So, as I was saying, doesn’t she have a finger in other mineral-laced pies?
Roy Hill’s head office is near Perth airport. Perhaps you can call in and let them know which parts of their processes are slipshod and tell them whereabouts is the ‘crap left behind without rehabilitation’. Also perhaps you can pass your information along to the regulator DMIRS as well.
Good idea. Thanks for the info.
Perhaps it’s more that the reduction of value of any place exclusively as a ‘return on investment’ is already a cancer on that place. A cancer that wasn’t treated early.
That a Labor premier has committed such an act is yet another indicator of how far the party has fallen.
” Western Australia’s Person of the Year — decided by Celebrate WA, a non-profit sponsored by BHP, the WA government and Lotterywest “
Totally agree. What a disappointment. When I first heard the news, I thought it was a joke. I need to rethink who and what I vote for in the future.
Good point. Its pretty certain McGowan will turn up in some large mining company with at least a high 6 figure annual salary. Keep an eye on that one.
Eye opening speed for a result. 2months later we see the headline, “Former premier in talks about joining BHP”