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Good evening, and thank you. It is certainly an honour to receive this recognition.

Well it’s a long time since I’ve read from notes, but knowing how the media love to misquote me, tonight I will be reading from typed notes! I’ll be mainly speaking about that busy chappie, blind Freddie. And that too rare essential, common sense.

Thank you Peter Costello, Michael Stutchbury, and a warm thanks to the kind judges!

And may I extend an extra welcome to Australia to former PM and if can add, very entertaining, Boris Johnson.

Of course, I thank my 7 fantastic CEOs, and our CEO of Senex, Ian Davies, and all of our staff across Australia, be they working on our farms, stations, our mine sites, exploration camps or offices.

I love to hear from them that they’ve never worked at a better company, this is something I hear often. Long may this be.

Over the years, we’ve been thru tough years, and for our staff working on construction, these were very tough years indeed.

But now, thanks to our staff over decades, I couldn’t be prouder of our companies. I really couldn’t be. And truly believe our staff are right, we have the best private companies in Australia.

And you know what I like about our CEOs, apart from the fact we work fantastically well together, and they work long hours, they want to aim for more, and build the best private companies in the world!

Pretty special for a few Aussies who in the early 90s started off with such a mess, please don’t believe what you read in the media.

My dad’s estate was bankrupt which should be public knowledge, given the lengthy legal proceedings and appeal.

And, also public knowledge, he’d sold his shares in our company, to an entity not owned by our company, other than a few shares of no value and with no voting rights, and spent almost all of those sale proceedings pre his passing.

I still puzzle why the left media love to call me heiress, and even more puzzling is how they portray that once the government awards tenements to a company, after doing nothing much, money flows. Other than to undermine those who try hard and work hard.

The vast majority of tenements never make it to become mines. And as blind Freddie knows, no money flows. I’ll chat about that later too.

Our company has shown what outcomes can be achieved when employers and employees are able to work together.

It has been a challenging year for our primary industries with more and more interventions from the government and many in the city not understanding the import of these.

In agriculture, it’s no longer the dangerous fires, droughts, floods that are the main problem, but man made ones. Government ones.

One of my least favourites, is restricting farmers from being able to protect their families, staff, pets, homes and investment, from fires, outlawing firebreaks over inadequate dimensions.

Another that has upset many farmers, indeed has them very worried, is the building of vast tracts of solar panels and wind farms and electricity connections traversing over their land.

Yes, it is estimated that one third of prime agricultural land will be taken over. What do you think this will mean to fresh quality food availability, and prices. Maybe some more of these eyesores should be placed in city parks, rivers and city beaches, for us city dwellers to get a better idea, and to lessen the impact on agricultural land.

I know this won’t happen, you’re safe given the cities-are where the votes are, ….farmers however…

And we could try out the suggestion I read in the media recently about putting things under the solar panels, though I’d not recommend this. If fires come, it’s best to stay far away, stock too, the toxicity of those solar panels is quite extensive.

But at least the media article recommended to make the solar panels higher, so more weeds and things could enjoy underneath, the iron ore industry thanks you for that suggestion, given the extra steel that would be required, but I’m not sure those who then need to pay the increased bills for the extra steel over many many miles, will be as ecstatic.

And although farmers are upset, worried, sadly even frightened with these fire risks, transmission lines and large bird killers being placed on their properties, this is just the tip of the landslide waiting for them with net zero policies. A typical station, like for instance fossil downs, using the exact numbers of vehicles used to work that iconic station, to replace with electric vehicles will cost $10.4 to $11.4 million.

Plus unknown fines, as some of those EVs aren’t produced yet. And it doesn’t stop there.

If your station has say 50 windmills, windmills being essential to get the daily water stock need or they die, and you are required to change that to solar pumps at $ 70,000 a pop, that’s another $ 3.5 million.

And it doesn’t stop there, stations run on diesel fuelled generators, change them to solar, and please don’t forget that hidden fact, the sun it don’t shine at night, and, giant batteries will also be required.

Just how many farms and stations do you think will be able to pay for all this and still be able to operate, after hugely increasing the cost of food and fibres to city folk.

As I said in Rockie, probably only those who have a mining company in their back pocket. But perhaps inner cities won’t mind different quality food, coming in from overseas, not as fresh, not produced with our clean air and water, or environmental standards.

When primary industries are used to carry onerous government burdens, blind Freddie knows, those costs must be passed on. Even if increasing council rates you think don’t affect you, cos you don’t own a house, they actually do, as the landlord has to pass onto you via rent.

And payroll tax, even if you think that doesn’t matter either, that’s just for businesses to pay, well guess what, as blind Freddie knows, that has to be passed on to you too.

And excise on fuel, even if you don’t own a car, well, anything that requires transport requires fuel, ag equipment also needs to bring us, grains, cereals, milk, etc, even office people getting to and from their desks, these costs are passed on.

I can’t think of anything that isn’t touched by the governments excise on fuel. I call that a nasty tax, that with people struggling, would be an absolutely fantastic one to cut.

Like other businesses, we have been speaking out regarding these interventions where we see that the path the government is taking is not in the best interests of Australians.

Australians are dealing with rising costs of food, energy, fuel, housing, and so much more. Yet too often our governments’ policies, rather than helping to alleviate these pressures in fact add to them.

You may have heard me on about pensioners, the vast majority of whom are sadly going through distressing times, how we can do this to our elderly is beyond me.

Let them work if then want to as much as they want, without upper limit on hours, and without onerous complicated paperwork and without discriminatory rates of tax imposed for their working longer hours and being able to improve their lives.

My blood boils, that our veterans, who’ve served our country, many even risking their lives, are also faced with poverty, even homelessness, with restrictions on how long they can work.

Complicated paperwork, and unfair discriminatory taxes if they work hours beyond what okayed by the Canberra bureaucracy.

And our uni students, let them experience work, build up experience, savings for their safer car, or even to put towards a home.

Why in a worker shortage crisis, record debt, rising costs of living, can blind Freddie see what should be permitted, but, our government can’t.

We need policy that helps Australians. We need policies that make investment in our country worth doing. If we have any interest in maintaining our standards of living, we should be doing what other countries are doing.

Rolling out the red carpet for investment. Expensive trade trips, even the expense of trade personnel overseas, well, without cutting the cost and delay or worse of government tape, there’s no reason for those. We need to understand that rolling out the red carpet for investment does not mean increasing government tape and regulations. It does not mean the overburdened taxpayers paying for lawfare to delay or stop projects.

Blind Freddie can see. Common sense would be so helpful.

The old but true law of supply and demand; there is just no getting around the fact that if you decrease the supply of a commodity, such as gas, while demand remains the same or increases, it’s inevitable there are going to be increases in prices.

The way to reverse this is not by government intervention, but in fact the opposite – removing tape and negative policies and encouraging the investment needed to bring on more supply. Yep, blind Freddie can see this.

The AFR, Australia’s leading business newspaper, and its media mates, has an important role to play in conveying these blind Freddie messages to our government.

The eminent scientist and friend of my father, who scientists who knew both Teller and Einstein stated Teller had the greater mind, and that is something of import I did inherit and treasure, that friendship, who we hosted in Australia on numerous occasions, Dr Edward Teller, was once asked by a journalist if he was frightened of the responsibility he had having worked on the hydrogen bomb.

Dr Teller responded by asking if he was frightened of the responsibility he had as a journalist: quote, “All of us in today’s world have influences far beyond our immediate imagination, but yours perhaps reaches farthest.”

I hope all those in the media here this evening who want to see higher living standards, hence greater investment, and easing cost of living pressures don’t ignore what blind Freddie can see. Of course you can do your usual attacks on me, controversial, etc, but common sense is badly needed.

Thank you again, I hope you’re all enjoying the lead up to Chrissie, and have a very happy Christmas. My New Year’s Eve wish, for next year, please don’t ignore what blind Freddie can see, and provide tonnes of common sense in your media, your contribution is critical.