Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart has launched another astonishing attack on wind and solar – and “net zero” in general – despite investing in mines that are operating at near 100 per cent renewables and supplying minerals essential to the green industry.
In a keynote speech at the Bush Summit held in Darwin on Friday, Rinehart took aim at the “great green incinerator”, including a thinly veiled attack on fellow iron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest, who is not just aiming for “net zero” in a couple of decades time, but to real zero in just four years.
Rinehart didn’t mention Forrest by name, but wondered why iron ore miners were reporting their “lowest dividends in seven or eight years”, yet spending billions on the “great green incinerator”.
Forrest’s Fortescue is spending $7.2 billion on wind, solar, batteries and transmission, as well as electric trucks and other mining equipment to eliminate fossil fuels by 2030, an investment it says will deliver a quick return.
Rinehart was not able to attend the Bush Summit on Friday, but in a speech read in her absence by former NT chief minister and now Rinehart employee Adam Giles – the CEO of Hancock agriculture, she said:
