We’ve seen how this unfolds

A video is circulating online of Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart asking the audience at a recent event to make the sound of a bulldozer. She then goes on to gift a toy bulldozer to One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson. In the video, Rhinehart refers to Elon Musk being given a ‘big chainsaw’ to cut ‘government tape and bureaucracy over in America’, adding that we need more than that here, ‘we need an orange bulldozer’.

Rinehart was referring to a conservative conference held just over a year ago. At the event Musk was waving around a chainsaw saying ‘this is a chainsaw for bureaucracy’. At the time Musk was a ‘Special Government Employee’ where he chaired the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’. One of the goals of the Department was to reduce regulations and spending.

Among the decisions made by Musk in this role, were significant cuts to international aid largely through the shutdown of the United States Agency for International Development (US AID). At the time that the cuts were announced, it was estimated that the decision to remove this funding would result in 14 million people dying by 2030. A staggering 4.5 million of these would be children under the age of five.

Decisions made by governments have direct consequences on the lives of people across the world. Governments decide who gets to access safe drinking water, healthcare, education, power and other life-saving aid. Since the cuts made by the US to international aid, there have been reports of people ‘slowly starving’ in Kenyan refugee camps as a direct result of cuts to US funding which has reduced food rations to their lowest ever levels. 

Since this time, Musk has become the first trillionaire. When he made these decisions, he was a billionaire. The people he was tasked with making decisions about  live in extreme poverty, defined by the international poverty line as living on less than $3 per day.  Musk could not be further removed from the poverty and disadvantage of the people who their decisions impact upon.

When the image of Rinehart handing Hanson an orange bulldozer emerged online, I immediately thought of the impact of the decisions made by Musk and Trump. All I could think about were the millions of lives lost as a result of their decisions and how Rinehart was egging Hanson on to mimic this.

Here we have the richest Australian standing alongside the leader of a party that openly discriminates against people who are experiencing the greatest levels of disadvantage. In the video they are laughing about cuts to essential services and programs that people depend on.

Hanson has made clear her position on international aid under her policy called ‘Slash government waste’. Within this, she shares that she would like to see a cut of $3 billion, representing 60% of the international aid budget. She has also shared that she will withdraw Australia from the United Nations (UN) and World Health Organization (who). This would have a similar effect to the cuts by the US. It would result in more children dying from starvation and preventable health conditions.

This policy also does not reflect what Australians want. A 2025 poll by the Lowy Institute found that two thirds of Australians felt that the amount provided in international aid was about right or needed to be higher. Almost one in five (17%) felt that the amount was too low. This is because, many of us see the role of government being to help people who are experiencing the greatest levels of disadvantage within our country and across the world.

One Nation is dominating the news cycle right now. Much is being said about Hanson’s popularity. But up until her address at the Press Club last week, not much was being said about her stated policies, which are listed for all to see on her website.

We don’t have to guess what happens if and when Rinehart and Hanson are given more political power. We can see what happens, because we’ve seen it all before. We can also see what will happen because she has mapped it all out.

But we have the power to stop it from happening. It will take honest conversations with people close to us and across organisations about what One Nation stands for and how inconsistent this is with our values and beliefs. It will also take a different approach to advocacy, one that doesn’t treat One Nation as just another party, but instead acknowledges the harm that will be caused across our communities if their presence in Parliament increases.

Most Australian’s care deeply about others, particularly people who are experiencing the greatest levels of disadvantage and poverty. As advocates working to advance equity in all its forms, the question we need to ask ourselves is ‘What role are we playing in helping to make sure that these policies that will cause harm are not advanced?’

Caterina Giorgi, For Purpose

24 June 2026

This post was also published on Croakey.