Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart, one of the country’s wealthiest and a prominent mining executive, has suggested offering free land near Townsville in Queensland to \u2018Israeli\u2019 defence specialists and their families.<\/p>\n
The proposal, in Rinehart\u2019s opinion, aims to establish a hub for developing and manufacturing advanced military technologies, including war drones and improved missile defence systems akin to \u2018Israel’s\u2019 Iron Dome.<\/p>\n
Rinehart made the remarks during a keynote address at News Corp’s National Bush Summit in Townsville on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Introduced by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, she referenced the city’s historical role as a naval and air base during World War II, noting its strategic importance in defending Australia.<\/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,” Rinehart stated, according to the official transcript from Hancock Prospecting.<\/p>\n
She advocated providing transport for skilled workers, their immediate families, and equipment to facilitate the initiative.
The proposal envisions \u2018Israeli\u2019 companies producing advanced defence systems locally for sale to Australia.<\/p>\n
Her speech also included suggestions for free land and incentives to attract Taiwanese microchip manufacturers to Prairie and islands near Townsville for Elon Musk’s SpaceX to support satellite construction and launches.<\/p>\n
These measures, she argued, would create jobs, boost local skills, and position northern Queensland as an innovation centre.<\/p>\n
The comments have generated significant public discussion, with reactions ranging from support for potential economic and defence benefits to criticism regarding foreign involvement in Australian land and military capabilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart, one of the country’s wealthiest and a prominent mining executive, has suggested offering free…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":750366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-750365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750365","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=750365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/750365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/750366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=750365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=750365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=750365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}