The dynamics have changed somewhat since I wrote “Elect Peter Dutton, get a mini Trump” almost two months ago. The title of this article is the dead giveaway: It implies that voting for Dutton would effectively bring Rinehart’s influence – and by extension, her admiration for Donald Trump – into Australian politics.
Here’s how it breaks down: Peter Dutton has been cozying up to Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest person and a self-proclaimed Trump enthusiast. She’s not just a passive fan – having attended Trump’s campaign launch, his election night party at Mar-a-Lago, and even his January 2025 inauguration, rubbing elbows with the likes of Trump’s inner circle. Her admiration is loud and clear: she has called Trump “courageous” and “patriotic,” and a model for leaders, suggesting his approach could inspire global leadership, saying he would “set the world stage for others to follow.” Dutton’s leadership might align with Rinehart’s worldview, including her Trump fandom, potentially shaping policy or priorities in ways that reflect her interests, like mining or a more conservative stance.
Dutton’s link to Rinehart isn’t just a handshake at a gala. She has hosted fundraisers for him – $14,000-a-ticket affairs – and her company, Hancock Prospecting, is a major donor to the Coalition. He has flown across the country to her 70th birthday bash in Perth, calling her a “dear friend” and “great Australian.” She has got his ear, and her Trump obsession seems to bleed into his rhetoric – think cuts to public service, slashing red tape, and a fossil-fuel-friendly vibe that echoes Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” ethos.
Rinehart has been vocal in urging the country’s political leaders to emulate Trump (or herself, maybe, she is after all “a female Donald Trump”) and adopt his (and her?) policy agendas. Drawing from her long-standing admiration for Trump, Rinehart has advocated for Australia to mirror initiatives like Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which aimed to slash government waste and regulations, and to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, arguing that such climate policies harm living standards and disproportionately burden low-income Australians (I didn’t know she cared). She has praised Trump’s approach to cutting taxes, reducing bureaucratic red tape, and promoting fossil fuel industries – policies she believes could boost investment, create jobs, and elevate Australia’s economic prosperity. Rinehart’s push, often framed as a call for “sensible leadership,” aligns with her broader critique of government overreach and her vision for a more business-friendly Australia, a stance she has amplified through her ties to Trump’s inner circle and her influence within Australian conservative politics. However, her advocacy raises questions about the applicability of Trump’s polarising strategies in a different national context, especially given Australia’s unique economic reliance on global trade and environmental commitments.
Electing Dutton could mean Rinehart’s influence – and her Trump fetish – gets a front-row seat in Canberra. It is not a straight line from Dutton to Trump, but with Rinehart as the glue, the triangle has got some heft.
The dynamic has a wild energy to it, like watching a power play unfold in real time. You’ve got Peter Dutton, the pragmatic opposition leader, leaning into Gina Rinehart, the billionaire with a Trump-sized crush, who is practically auditioning to be his backstage puppeteer. Then there is Trump himself, not even in the room but looming large as Rinehart’s gold standard for what Dutton could be.
Summing it up
It is this push-pull of ambition and ideology – Rinehart has the cash and the vision (Trump 2.0, Aussie edition), Dutton has the platform and the political muscle, and Trump is the ghost in the machine, inspiring it all without lifting a finger. It is as though she sees Dutton as a way to import a bit of that Trump magic she loves so much. It is less about the policy details and more about the sheer chemistry of influence bouncing between them. Like a political soap opera but with higher stakes.
Dear reader, we need your support
Independent sites such as The AIMN provide a platform for public interest journalists. From its humble beginning in January 2013, The AIMN has grown into one of the most trusted and popular independent media organisations.
One of the reasons we have succeeded has been due to the support we receive from our readers through their financial contributions.
With increasing costs to maintain The AIMN, we need this continued support.
Your donation – large or small – to help with the running costs of this site will be greatly appreciated.
You can donate through PayPal or credit card via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
I wonder if there’s an antonym for the word ‘woke’ that could be applied to Reinhart and her marionette. Greed doesn’t cut it, naked self-interest gets close but any way you look at it she’s in it for herself, her companies and those who share her desire to destroy our way of life. She is a prime example of those who need to be taxed into submission. I would have said penury but can’t wish that on anyone as there are already too many Australians living in that situation due to policies enacted by those she supports.
A couple of my friends have asked why I am voting Independent in the seat of Fairfax in the coming federal election. They seem mildly surprised because I’ve been a rusted on Greens/ALP supporter for many decades. Well, my reasoning is hardly rocket science.
For me there is one major issue that surpasses all other such things as cost of living, energy policies, and the usual grab bag of issues that politicians delight in telling me I should be concerned or fearful about. I’m not quaking about those issues because they sit on the swings and roundabouts spectrum, one political hand giveth while, in the same immediacy, the other political hand assuredly takeths away, so nothing has changed there.
The prime issue for me in this election is how to keep Trumpian style politics out of Australia. Dumb rich men who borrow the populist persona of the strong man and who delight in disruption in order to enrich themselves, while at the same time not even trying to hide how much they use and despise their own slavish supporters, are likely to come a cropper here in our wide brown land.
In the ultra-conservative seat of Fairfax, here on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, the ALP has zero chance of winning the seat. So I am not, this time, going to waste my vote. I do not want the Coalition to retain this seat, I do not want a Trumpian suck-up and baby wannabe strong man like the hollow Dutton anywhere near the levers of political power. I’m voting Independent, both to get an excellent candidate like Francine Wiig into our federal parliament, but also to keep anybody who lives and hates on the extreme right-wing out of it.
Gina and dear Peter, Blubber and Grubber, Portly and Rortly, Bent and for rent. The world has developed, not necessarily well in line with old educated expectations..,for things happened beyond comprehension, and as in all history the crooked, selfish executive managerial exploitative, filthite class members have the money, tech, knowhow, services of ambitious non-caring professional operatives, all to renew oppression and parasitic controls. D Trump, a new supergrabbing, executive murdering thieving opportunistic malleable filthite can smash law by exploiting fear, threat, all while outflanking slow law processes. He gets away with megacaesarnapoleondreamlike criminality, easily so far. Adolf and Josef might smile and imagine “if only I had all that control apparatus in my day.” Only the elimination of this class by terminal ways have “we” any hope, otherwise the very planet is doomed. Can Australian citizen voters see the threats? NO?
By “Show excellence” to the ABC he means stop picking us and tear into Labor every chance you get OR ELSE! Temu Trump at his best.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/dutton-tells-abc-to-show-excellence-or-face-funding-razor-gang-20250402-p5lofu.html
Fat slug Gina is the most repulsive person in the country, along with her fat slug mate Clive.
With the likes of those two “jabba the huts” slobbering and drooling over the chance to take control of our country every person eligible to vote should be sent a package of information on what King Chump has done to his country in a mere couple of months in power. That is exactly what our two fat slugs want to do to Australia, and it must be stopped at all costs.
Angus practicing his great arsehole kissing of Elmo, “Oh, Elmo, please use me to clean your crack…mm…mm…kissy…kissy”
@3.19pm,
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2025/apr/02/australia-election-2025-campaign-live-labor-coalition-anthony-albanese-peter-dutton-cost-of-living-wages-emissions-ntwnfb?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with%3Ablock-67ec9cf78f08b5dc8a06a6bc#block-67ec9cf78f08b5dc8a06a6bc
Imagine, we can have our version of Elon Musk at the PM’s shoulder, working together to undermine any sense of integrity in government as public service jobs are discarded, public institutions trashed….
Oh the joy.
An earlier state campaign here in the west had the Liberal leader admit defeat before a vote had even beed lodged.
I wonder if Peter Dutton is trying to beat that record. He most certainly is demonstrating that he really does not have a clue about what is needed to govern for all Australians.
Koch too. She is strongly attached to Atlas Koch CIS, especially since the Voice No campaign, and exemplified further by her views on ‘woke’, employees/unions and other confected issues
Meanwhile offers DOGE support (inc Dutton mooting Price for similar) via her new buddy Musk which reeks of Kochonomics or ‘segregation economics’; need to collapse budgets, services and government to rebuild with low regulation, taxes, budgets and services.
Worse, is that too much of this imported US agitprop can be linked to pre WWII Germany especially the anti-woke etc. and attacks on universities.
Seems to replicate the NSDAP Weimar era tactics versus the ‘cultural Marxism’ of the Frankfurt School to enable anti-semitic dog whistles; many of the same faculty then migrated to Columbia University.
On the latter, serves as a target for RWNJs, ultra-conservatives, ‘manosphere’ and MAGA white Christian nationalists; anti-immigrant, anti-semitic, Islamophobic and following eugenics.
Oh yeah! let’s make it all ‘Great Again’. The Carolingian Empire, The Holy Roman Empire, the Spanish & Portuguese Empires and the Polish-Lithuanian Empire, and may as well throw in the Ottomans and Habsbergs (or Austro-Hungarians). And for good measure, the Johnny-come-lately British & Americans.
Gee whiz, there’ll be plenty of realloying of iron and steel, fistfulls of fiat money and extorted assets being splashed around on diminished oceans of crude, and goodness, now that the world has made it past 8 billion, plenty of cannon fodder, not to mention ash to eat.
Perhaps then we can re-callibrate the enlightenment and adventures from the occident to the orient.