Learn from global leaders

21/08/2026

by Gina Rinehart
Executive chairman, Hancock Prospecting

A leader I greatly respect, Winston Churchill once said, “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”

So, what can we learn from looking back? A huge amount.

At the end of another outstanding leader’s years in government, he was able to look back and say, “it’s been quite a journey this decade, and we held together through some stormy seas … together, we are reaching our destination”.

This leader said there were two things of which he was proudest: “One is the economic recovery, in which the people created and filled 19 million new jobs. The other is that we are respected again in the world and looked to for leadership.”

“We began the actions we felt would ignite an economic comeback, cut taxes and regulation, started to cut spending. And soon the recovery began.

“Two years later (at an economic summit) I saw that everyone was just sitting there looking at me … then one of them broke the silence. ‘Tell us about your miracle’,” they said.

“Some pundits said our programs would result in catastrophe. Our plans for the economy would cause inflation to soar and bring about economic collapse. I even remember one highly respected economist saying, back in 1982, that ‘the engines of economic growth have shut down here, and they’re likely to stay that way for years to come.’ Well, he and the other opinion leaders were wrong … what they called ‘dangerous’ was just ‘desperately needed’.”

“I communicated great things, they came from the heart of a great nation, from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries.

“For me it always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our common sense.

“Common sense told us that when you put a big tax on something, the people will produce less of it. So, we cut the people’s tax rates, and the people produced more than ever before. Our economic program brought about the longest peacetime expansion in our history: real family income up, the poverty rate down, entrepreneurship booming, and an explosion in research and new technology. We’re exporting more than ever because our industry became more competitive. Common sense also told us that to preserve the peace, we’d have to become strong again after years of weakness and confusion. So, we rebuilt our defences.

“The lesson of all this was that because we’re a great nation, our challenges seem complex. But as long as we remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours.

“Countries across the globe are turning to free markets and free speech and turning away from the ideologies of the past. For them, the great rediscovery of the 1980s has been that, lo and behold, the moral way of government is the practical way of government: Democracy, the profoundly good, is also the profoundly productive.

“I was raised to believe you had to pay your way for the blessings bestowed on you.

“Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: ‘We the People.’ ‘We the People’ tell the government what to do; it doesn’t tell us. ‘We the People’ are the driver; the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and how, what route, and how fast. This belief has been the underlying basis for everything I’ve tried to do.

“Through more and more rules and regulations and confiscatory taxes, the government was taking more of our money, more of our options, and more of our freedom.

“I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics. As government expands, liberty contracts.

“Nothing is less free than pure communism.”

This leader recounted a trip to the then communist USSR, and being warmly welcomed by the people, until:

“A KGB detail pushed their way toward us and began pushing and shoving the people in the crowd. It reminded me that while the man on the street in the Soviet Union yearns for peace, the government is Communist. And those who run it are Communists, and that means we and they view such issues as freedom and human rights very differently.

“I’m proudest of in the past eight years: the resurgence of national pride that I called the new patriotism. This national feeling is good.”

You have probably guessed by now who this great leader was – United States President Ronald Reagan. He was a great leader because of all he did for his beloved nation. He could look back on his time as president and know:

He had the guts to cut government tape, and hence was able to cut bureaucracy and taxes. You can’t deliver tax cuts without cutting the burden of government.

Cutting government tape and tax led to an improved economy, more jobs and higher living standards.

He genuinely loved his country and people enough to want to protect them, hence increased defence.

He brought back national patriotism, pride in country and protection of his nation’s freedoms.

Isn’t this the sort of outcome Australians need and deserve from our elected governments?

As we commence the 2026 Bush Summit in Dubbo I ponder, what can our government and the people of our country look back on from our governments over the years?

Nobody in our government had the guts to cut the bureaucracy. Under this government it is expanding at great cost to taxpayers, and government tape, regulations and taxes are expanding accordingly.

Without tape and tax cuts, farmers are struggling, country towns are struggling, hospitality is struggling, housing construction is struggling, small businesses are struggling, and we have record business failures. Our living standards continue to decline. Given our tape burden and high taxes, cost-of-living increases and real investment declines, this is not good for our future.

Our defence is dangerously undermanned, and is accepting people into defence who previously would not have been accepted. We are doing little to protect our essential sea-lanes and ports, or our critical infrastructure, and have a huge shortage of necessary war drones, smart sea mines, missiles and Israeli-style war drones, inadequate refineries and fuel storage, etc.

Failure in protecting our patriotism and pride. Even three-year-olds are taught that our flag is to be ashamed of, and represents the “I’m sorry flag.”

President Reagan left us with a very important message on patriotism and national pride:

“This national feeling (patriotism) is good, but it won’t count for much, and it won’t last unless it’s grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge.

“An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what our country is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different country. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn’t get these things from your family you got them from the neighbourhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea.

“Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that our country was special. TV was like that, too.

“Some things have changed. For those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven’t reinstitutionalised it. We’ve got to do a better job of getting across that our country is freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise.

“And freedom is special and rare. It’s fragile; it needs protection.

“So, we’ve got to teach history based not on what’s in fashion but what’s important.”

“I’m warning of an eradication of our country’s memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of our spirit. Let’s start with some basics: more attention to our history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual.

“And let me offer lesson number one about our country: All great change here begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins.”