The richest person in Australia has called on her country's poor to smoke and drink less, and to stop complaining about their plight and work harder to get rich.
In a wide-ranging column in the magazine Australian Resources and Investment, iron ore tycoon Gina Rinehart decried Australia's "socialist" policies that hinder big business, and said high taxes and minimum wage were pricing homegrown businesses out of their own markets.
She also complained about “class warfare” and a sense of "entitlement" in poorer Australian states and said the country as a whole has lost its "roots: Our pride in building and providing for ourselves."
Rinehart is worth a reported $30 billion, and in addition to being the richest person in Australia, is considered the richest woman on the planet.
Though she inherited her family fortune, Rinehart said "there is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire" and urged others to effectively get off the couch and get rich, or stop complaining about their financial woes.
"If you're jealous of those with more money, don't just sit there and complain; do something to make more money yourself -- spend less time drinking, or smoking and socializing, and more time working," Rinehart said.
"Become one of those people who work hard, invest and build, and at the same time create employment and opportunities for others. Australia needs such people."
Rinehart mentioned the term "class warfare" multiple times throughout her manifesto, and suggested Australia's policies were making it difficult for big businesses to thrive -- but that the poor were the real victims.
She said the country's richest would survive bad policies and tough economic times, and could always go elsewhere to do business. At worst, she said, tycoons like herself might have to cut short a European vacation, or delay the purchase of a new beach house by a year or so, when times get tough.
But the poor and the young, she said, suffer deeply because employers stop hiring when government policies hurt business.
"I hope I can now repeat, without sounding like I'm pleading from self-interest, that the mining pipeline has indeed been squeezed too hard," she wrote.
Rinehart said big business is the true driver of the nation's economy, and should be encouraged in any way.
In fact, she said, the government should consider lowering Australia's minimum wage, a move she said would encourage companies to hire more people.
