Gina Rinehart says Australia should give Elon Musk islands to launch satellites into space

Billionaire also tells summit land could be given to skilled Israelis to build ‘advanced war drones’, according to Hancock Prospecting notes Gina Rinehart has proposed Australia should offer Elon Musk islands for free to build satellites and launch them into space in a bid to attract investment to northern Queensland. Australia’s richest woman continued her battle against government regulation and high taxes in a speech delivered at News Corp’s bush summit in Townsville on Thursday. According to Hancock Prospecting’s transcript of her speech, Rinehart proposed to “close all federal departments that overlap with state departments”, including the climate change, agriculture and industry departments, in order to save the federal budget billions. The mining magnate, who made a “significant investment” in Musk’s SpaceX company earlier this week reportedly worth $1.4bn, said the trillionaire could be given free land at “sparsely or non-populated islands” near Townsville for SpaceX satellite construction and launches. The islands marked on the map included Magnetic, Rattlesnake, Acheron, Palm, Orpheus and Pelorus islands. “Add water and the infrastructure Elon needs. He needs land to expa