Gina Rinehart’s speech is interrupted by a mischievous horse as giggling mining magnate struggles to keep her composure

Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, is not used to being overshadowed, but a persistent horse left her in fits of laughter and interrupting her speech.

Ms Rinehart was standing in a paddock on Tuesday filming a speech for the Bush Summit being held in the north-west Tasmanian city of Launceston when one of two horses grazing behind her came towards her.

As Mrs Rinehart, head of iron ore giant Hancock Prospecting, talked about the benefits of mining to the community, the horse began nibbling on the sleeves of her Driza-Bone jacket.

Despite trying valiantly to continue and ignore the farm animal, Mrs Rinehart eventually burst out laughing when the horse nibbled on her collar, causing the filming to be abruptly interrupted.

On the other side of the abrupt change, Mrs. Rinehart tried to pick up where she left off, but the horse remained interested in the back of her coat.

“The housing crisis isn’t stopping on the mainland, I know it’s reaching Tasmania,” Mrs Rinehart said as the horse began to tug at her sleeve, causing her to give him a fearful look.

The mining magnate burst out laughing again, but continued to talk determinedly about the benefits of mining and agriculture.

As the horse sniffed her, at one point the animal caused Mrs. Rinehart to jump forward uncomfortably, but she kept her feet on the ground.

After they had explored Mrs. Rinehart’s back sufficiently, the horse walked along the side and then suddenly appeared in the lower right corner of the screen. The video switched to pre-recorded stock footage to illustrate the themes of the speech.

When the video refocused on Mrs. Rinehart, the horse was finally gone.

In her speech, the third she delivered during the six-day Bush summit, Ms. Rinehart urged those who value agriculture and mining to “Let us make it clear to our politicians that we do not want to perish as an industry or a country, but that we want to rise.

“We want to see policies that don’t deter investment, but instead encourage more investment, raise living standards and leave you with more after tax to spend what you want,” she said.

The things that are dragging Australia down are taxes, over-regulation and bureaucracy, Ms Rinehart argued.

She said the Minerals Council of Australia had recently estimated the country was missing out on about $68 billion in investment because major mining projects were increasingly being put into the ‘too difficult’ category.

Ms Rinehart said only 20 per cent of projects that first appear on Australia’s list of largest projects are completed, “while 80 per cent are abandoned altogether”.

Despite her attempts to bravely continue her speech, the horse refused to be ignored as it rubbed against Mrs. Rinehart’s back

Mrs Rinehart said that despite record immigration, there was a labour shortage.

She claimed that for every million migrants “this government has brought in” only “about 40,000 have been added to the labor force.”

She called on federal and state governments to cut taxes to help ease the cost of living crisis that has forced people to choose between “heating their homes or eating.”

“We don’t want empty words, we want to know that the taxes that were supposed to be abolished when the GST was introduced, such as payroll tax, licensing fees and stamp duty, will also be abolished,” she said.

“We want to hear that the federal government is going to eliminate the excise tax on fuel. That will not only reduce the cost of our cars and other vehicles, but also the cost of all transported goods and all goods that require fuel for processing or production.”

Mrs Rinehart’s Driza-Bone is one of the sponsors of the Bush Summit, which lasts six days and takes place at six different locations in the region.

The regional centres hosting the summit are Townsville in Queensland, Bendigo in Victoria, Launceston in Tasmania, McLaren Vale in South Australia, Orange in New South Wales and Port Hedland in Western Australia.