Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Gina re-visited

Really, as her children asked, why did Australian Story bother with a two parter on Gina Rinehart, as it seemed to add nothing to what we didn't already know about her family history?  It certainly was used by Gina for an attempt at some better PR, but whose idea was it to do such a lightweight update on her lifestory at this particular time?

Anyway, the show did amuse me for a few reasons:

*  I had forgotten about her father's crackpot hope that H bombs could be used to help develop Northern Australia even faster, and it was funny to watch the ever soft voiced Gina talking to family friend Ed Teller about this idea from an aircraft full of the white shoe brigade.

*  the show also mentioned her Dad's involvement with the deadly blue asbestos mine at Wittenoom.   It didn't mention this:
...according to his friend John Singleton, had a party trick of spreading asbestos on his Weet-Bix to prove the point that asbestos wasn't deadly.

Lang had discovered asbestos in the Pilbara in the 1950s and went to his grave swearing that asbestos wasn't dangerous.
*  it did make a brief mention of Gina opposing the Labor carbon "tax", although it made no mention of her actively funding climate change fake skepticism.

In short, despite the attempted gloss, the show reminded the careful viewer that nutty Right wingers bent on making money can be freaking dangerous.

Thanks ABC, I guess...

Update:   In answer to Tim's question in comments - he definitely thought they were good for creating instant deep water harbours, but really, what didn't Lang think H bombs were good for?:



at

2 comments:

  1. TimT2:57 pm

    What did Hancock want to do with H Bombs precisely? Nuke the north of Australia and civilisation would magically spring up? Hilarious.

    ReplyDelete
  2. John6:04 pm

    The idea was originally proposed for Alaska. I think it was the Aus physicist Oliphant who pointed out that atmospheric testing was resulting in too much radioactivity and he led in banning this. Additionally it was an Aus study which found strontium 90 was being deposited in bones of babies during the period.

    Hancock's views on mixed aboriginal descent were disgusting.

    Edward Teller was a strong advocate of a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Russia. It has been speculated that he was the model for Dr. Strangelove.

    ReplyDelete