Gina Rinehart unloads in an explosive speech exposing the huge problems with Australia – as she warns the country is on a downward spiral

Gina Rinehart has criticised Australia’s ‘woke’ education system, claiming children are being ‘taught to be ashamed of our country’.

The mining magnate made the statement in a video address at the Bush Summit in Bendigo, Victoria, on Monday.

Mrs Rinehart called for ‘adjusting’ the national curriculum, cutting government bureaucracy, cutting taxes and criticised immigration figures.

Her comments come after she argued on Friday that the government should reintroduce mandatory national service for all men under 53 and install an “iron dome” missile defence system over Australia’s northern islands.

She urged the government to “drill, dig, drill and dig, dig, dig” to cover the costs.

Ms Rinehart, Australia’s richest person with an estimated fortune of $30.5 billion, claimed on Monday that “our children and grandchildren are being let down at school”.

“Even children as young as three in kindergarten are being told that our police are bad and that plastic, which is essential in hospitals, is bad,” she told the summit.

‘They and others in school classes are no longer taught to be proud of our country, on the contrary.

Mrs Rinehart with Italian opera singer Matteo Bocelli at the party she hosted for the Australian Olympians, which she has funded to the tune of $80 million since 2012

“They are taught that it is wrong to say there are two genders, and are even scolded for saying so. They are taught propaganda instead of facts, and wokeness instead of understanding rationality and logic.”

Ms Rinehart claimed that mining, coal and iron ore are not mentioned once in secondary school economics and business curricula.

“In the entire national high school curriculum, iron ore is only mentioned twice, yet climate change and renewable energy are mentioned 48 times,” she said.

‘Schoolchildren are afraid that the world is going to end and that they will die, some think within five to ten years. They wonder why they should do their homework when the world is going to end. Such curricula are revealing of the generation of young Australians that we are frankly failing.

‘I’ve heard that anti-Australia, woke and man-made climate change now take up about a third of our school curricula. No wonder we’re behind.

She called for an Australian version of ‘Moms for America’, an American campaign against LGBT, racial doctrine and discrimination in schools.

Ms Rinehart also claimed that it would have disastrous consequences if the education system were to undermine pride among young people in Australia.

“As the number of defense personnel declines and our school programs teach our children to be ashamed of our country and not proud of our history, which has given us one of the highest standards of living in the world and created magnificent primary industries, the question should be asked: Why would our schoolchildren in the future want to defend our country, a country they have been taught not to like, or even hate?,” she told Summit delegates.

Ms Rinehart also praised the country’s agriculture and mining industries, which she described as “the engine room of Australia”.

“It seems that some people too easily forget that every aspect of our lives is affected by the mining or agricultural sector,” she told the summit.

‘As you know, everything has to be grown or mined, whether it’s the food on the table, the energy needed to cool and cook it, or the utensils used to eat it, and so much more.’

Ms Rinehart also claimed that it would have disastrous consequences if the education system were to undermine pride among young people in Australia.

Ms Rinehart warned that Australia was going ‘down’, not ‘up’.

She also criticised government policies that fail to take into account the people of our outback and claimed that cutting taxes would help address the cost of living crisis.

“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.

“Wouldn’t that help with the cost of living? We want to hear that the federal government will drop the excise tax on fuel, not only to reduce the cost of our cars and other vehicles, but to reduce the cost of all goods transported, and all goods that require fuel for their processing or production!”

Ms Rinehart also strongly criticised the record immigration figures.

“Let us not forget that the million or so migrants that this government has brought in have only added about 40,000 to the labor force,” she said.

‘Yet they cause many harms: the nearly one million people who are exacerbating our housing crisis, driving up rents, putting pressure on police departments which results in more crime, and causing more delays at hospitals. They are even being turned away from emergency rooms because our doctors, nurses and medical facilities simply can’t cope.’

On the first day of the Bush summit in Townsville on Friday, Ms Rinehart called on the government to improve Australia’s defence infrastructure by blanketing the country’s northern islands with an Israeli “iron dome” missile decoy system.

“You might be wondering, how are we going to pay for this? Simple: We need to reduce government waste — and there’s a lot of it — and we need to drill, baby, drill and dig, baby, dig,” she said.

She also called for the reintroduction of compulsory national service for “all biological males… under, say, 53”, with voluntary service for “biological females”.

The Bush Summit aims to address the major challenges facing communities in the Outback, including crime, cost of living and infrastructure financing.

Several speakers have spoken, including Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, who was booed by farmers during her speech on Monday.