{"id":744194,"date":"2026-06-18T09:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T09:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/744194\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T09:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T09:49:14","slug":"gina-rinehart-says-queensland-should-give-some-of-its-islands-to-elon-musk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/744194\/","title":{"rendered":"Gina Rinehart says Queensland should give some of its islands to Elon Musk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mining magnate Gina Rinehart has suggested Queensland should offer some of its islands to trillionaire Elon Musk.<\/p>\n

Mrs Rinehart was speaking at the National Bush Summit in Townsville today, a News Corp event also sponsored by her company, Hancock Prospecting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During her speech at the event, which attracted high-profile public figures including One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and Premier David Crisafulli, the billionaire said North Queensland could become an economic powerhouse.<\/p>\n

\"SpaceX<\/p>\n

SpaceX founder Elon Musk is the world’s richest man. (Reuters: Joe Skipper)<\/p>\n

“What industries should we try to attract? Well, what about the world’s best microchips?” Mrs Rinehart said.<\/p>\n

“What about Elon Musk’s communication satellites?\u00a0<\/p>\n

“What about defence manufacturing to protect our people and critical infrastructure?”<\/p>\n

The moments of Pauline Hanson’s speech she thinks matters<\/a><\/p>\n

When Pauline Hanson stood up at the National Press Club, it wasn’t just for the audience watching on broadcast TV. In the age of social media, the bite-sized clips that come later are far more important.<\/p>\n

Mr Musk recently became the world’s first trillionaire after SpaceX debuted on the Nasdaq exchange.<\/a><\/p>\n

Mrs Rinehart told the crowd Mr Musk needed land to expand because “he’s really got a massive program” and needed an “alternate weather place in an allied country”.<\/p>\n

“Over at the sparsely or non-populated islands on the screen … where there aren’t high-end tourist facilities, offer to Elon … at no cost for his SpaceX satellite construction and launches,” she said.<\/p>\n

In 2022, Mrs Rinehart’s company Hancock Prospecting abandoned its plans to redevelop Woppa-Great Keppel Island<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"two<\/p>\n

Gina Rinehart shares the stage with One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. (ABC North Qld: Chloe Chomicki)<\/p>\n

‘We need an orange bulldozer’<\/p>\n

During the speech, Mrs Rinehart also spoke about how she believed Townsville could become a base for Israeli companies developing military weapons systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Townsville made important history years ago as a navy base at Townsville, helping defend our country in World War II,” she said.<\/p>\n

“That important culture, a very important culture, could flourish again if we also offered free land, be that near Prairie [west of Townsville] if suitable or elsewhere near Townsville, for the Israelis.<\/p>\n

“And encourage the Israelis to develop and build their advanced war drones and\/or other advances in defence and improve upon their Israeli-style domes.<\/p>\n

“Manufacture them here to sell to our country to help make our people and critical infrastructure safe.”<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n

She finished the speech by having a large bulldozer toy brought to the stage and presented to Senator Hanson.<\/p>\n

“You might remember Elon Musk was given a big chainsaw to try and cut government tape and bureaucracies over in America,” Mrs Rinehart said.<\/p>\n

“We need an orange bulldozer.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mining magnate Gina Rinehart has suggested Queensland should offer some of its islands to trillionaire Elon Musk. Mrs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3120,60501,358310,43,358309,44,14754,358308,41,39,42,40,156257],"class_list":["post-744194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-elon-musk","tag-gina-rinehart","tag-gina-rinehart-speaks-at-townsville-summit","tag-headlines","tag-national-bush-summit","tag-news","tag-pauline-hanson","tag-queensland-islands","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-trillionaire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}