Fresh from assuring Australia she stands for the little, hard-pressed people, Pauline Hanson accepted another gift from billionaire Gina Rinehart on Thursday.
This time it wasn’t a shiny new plane.
It was, and it is something of an effort to retain a straight face in the telling of it, what Rinehart called “a beautiful, big, fat” toy bulldozer.
The West Australian mining mogul, chortling mightily and fairly glowing beneath her black ten-gallon hat, mouthed what she thought were bulldozer noises and called on the audience to join in as she called Hanson to the stage.
Despite Rinehart’s awkward entreaties, even the worthies at an event billed as a Bush Summit in Townsville, North Queensland, seemed bemused and a mite reluctant to join her flight of fancy as Hanson tottered to the stage to receive her bizarre gift.
“I don’t hear that noise, let’s have a big more: brroooooaaaawrrr,” urged Gina, Australia’s richest person.
Rinehart apparently imagined she was channelling Elon Musk during one of his more bizarre moments when he brought a chainsaw onstage at a triumphal Donald Trump rally.
It was barely any surprise, of course, that Musk was on Rinehart’s merry mind.
He made Rinehart even richer this week after she bought more than $1 billion of shares in his SpaceX float, the worth of which took off like a rocket.
“I want some bulldozer noise,” she cried.
“You might remember Elon Musk was given a big chainsaw to try and cut government tape and bureaucracies over in America.
“We actually need a beautiful, big, fat … We need an orange bulldozer!
“Let’s hear the noise. Brroooooaaaawrrr.”
Earlier, she had suggested that maybe Musk could launch his expensive rockets off the coast of Townsville, somewhere in the delicate ecosystem of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
“I have, of course, not discussed this with him, so I’m only off my own bat. But see all those beautiful deserted islands out there, wouldn’t it look wonderful with Elon arriving after having a few rockets built that launch the satellites,” she said.
And Pauline Hanson, the would-be champion of Australia’s allegedly overlooked masses, the woman who calls climate change a hoax, took possession of the symbol of untold mining riches dug up by roaring pollution-belching heavy machinery.
Tony Wright is an associate editor and special writer for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.From our partners
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