Must Be Nice To Be Twiggy
Last week saw reports that Twiggy forrest turn over 4 billion dollars in the last financial year. I mean success is nice but what the hell is he going to do with all that money? The man's net worth is $27.2 billion. You have to wonder what the bloody hell he could spend it all on before he dies. I normally don't begrudge successful people their money. If you're Elon Musk and you somehow managed to get to the top of the heap, I doff my cap to you. Having your own space programme? Starting up an electric vehicle company? These are things I might do too if I sat on billions. But Twiggy? I really don't know what on earth he does with his time and money. In fact even his Order of Australia seems to be a product of political donations more than anything else.
A quick look at his Wikipedia page has a section on his alleged philanthropy:
Philanthropy[edit]
Andrew and Nicola Forrest made The Giving Pledge in 2013, stating:[80]
Well that's a joke. If he's making 4 billion a year and farts around doing unspecified stuff while 'empowering' people - what does that mean anyway? - how exactly is that making the world more equitable? If you're selling coal, how the fuck are you making a positive environment in any way shape or form?
Indigenous Australians[edit]
After stepping down as chief executive officer of FMG, Forrest noted that he had been spending more than 50% of his time on Indigenous philanthropy.[9][81] Forrest became an ambassador for the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation.[82] Encouraged by the philanthropy of the Rockefeller Group, Warren Buffett, and Melinda and Bill Gates,[83] Andrew and Nicola Forrest established the Australian Children's Trust in 2001.[55]
Through the influence of Scotty Black, Forrest started the GenerationOne project,[84][18] with assistance from James Packer and Kerry Stokes, who each donated A$2 million, along with the support of their respective media stations, Channel 9 and Channel 7.[85] GenerationOne and the Australian Children's Trust help to create sustainable solutions on addressing social disadvantage.[86] With Kevin Rudd, Forrest launched the Australian Employment Covenant,[86] that campaigned for businesses to hire Indigenous Australians, as they could "add value" to Australian businesses because they were "professional and reliable and wonderful" and that there is no reason for Indigenous disparity.[18][87] GenerationOne ran a series of television advertisements privately funded by Forrest, Packer and Stokes.[88] Between 2008 and 2011, Forrest obtained 253 business signatories to his covenant.[87] With Rudd, Forrest planned to employ 50,000 Aboriginal people.[89][90] As the two-year deadline approached, estimates put the number of Indigenous job placements under the scheme at around 2,800, well short of the original goal.[91]
That's pretty laughable. Maybe there aren't 50,000 Aboriginal people who want to work for people who condescend to employ them? That is sort of reached 5.6% of the target is like a damnation of the very paradigm he's waving around.
Forrest is opposed to welfare dependency for Indigenous Australians.[92] He has recounted stories of young Aboriginal girls in the Pilbara offering men sex for cigarettes. Five Indigenous women from the region to collectively lodged a complaint with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission that Forrest's comment was racist and vilified the community.[93] Forrest has been publicly accused of engaging in questionable methods of land acquisition,[94][95] and has had accusations levelled at his company for failing Indigenous trainees at FMG's vocational training centre in Port Hedland.[96]
In 2013, Forrest was chosen to lead an Australian Government review into Indigenous employment and training programs.[97] Delivered on 1 August 2014 with 27 recommendations,[98] the review proposed the creation of the Cashless Welfare Card.[99]
Well of course he's against welfare dependency - it means more taxes have to be spent on welfare if people are 'welfare dependent' and that could only mean one thing, more taxes for high earners like him. What a self-serving joke that he thinks welfare dependency is the problem.
The next bit gets better (for laughs):
Slavery and human trafficking[edit]
Forrest's daughter, Grace volunteered at an orphanage in Nepal and discovered the children she had looked after had been trafficked to be sex slaves in the Middle East. This distressed Grace and motivated her father to act.[100][101] Grace, aged 21 years, said at a 2014 interfaith meeting held at the Vatican, "I feel like a puppet for hundreds of thousands of girls who are voiceless – if I can stand for them, that is what I'm here to do."[102]
Forrest established the Walk Free Foundation in 2010 to fight modern slavery.[103] In 2013 the organisation launched the Global Slavery Index ranking 162 countries "based on a combined measure of three factors: estimated prevalence of modern slavery by population, a measure of child marriage, and a measure of human trafficking in and out of a country".[104] The Index estimates there are 29 million slaves worldwide, roughly half in India and Pakistan.[101] In January 2014, Forrest announced a deal with Pakistan to do away with more than two million slaves in return for cheap coal.[105]
He traded coal for 2 million slaves! What a hero. With any luck that coal will raise the sea level and sink Pakistan... maybe? All because his daughter told him to grow a conscience. Pretty sad.
Forrest founded the Global Freedom Network that the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar lead. The Global Freedom Network works to stop all religious faiths from using organisations involved with slavery in their supply chain.[100]
In 2014 Andrew and Grace Forrest attended a meeting held in the Vatican, being a Joint Religious Leaders Declaration Against Modern Slavery. The anti-slavery declaration was signed by Pope Francis, Mata Amritanandamayi, Justin Welby, Thích Nhất Hạnh, K. Sri Dhammananda, David Rosen, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Abraham Skorka, Mohamed Ahmed El-Tayeb, Mohammad Taqi al-Modarresi, Basheer Hussain al-Najafi, and Omar Abboud – religious leaders representing forms of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.[102] Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, urged consumers to demand more information about whether forced labour was involved in goods they bought.[106]
h went around meeting people with big job titles up to and including the Pope. They got together and made a declaration that slavery is bad. Jesus wept, you think the world doesn't know? How exactly is this philanthropic?
Other philanthropic interests[edit]
As of September 2007, Forrest had injected A$90 million into his children's charity.[83] Philanthropic activity has included gifts to his alma mater, Hale School;[107] participation in the St Vincent de Paul Society CEO sleepouts;[108] and a gift from the proceeds of the sale of 5,000 tonnes (5,500 short tons) of iron ore to the Chinese earthquake relief effort.[51] In October 2013 it was announced that Forrest was to donate A$65 million towards higher education in Western Australia. At the time the sum was believed to be the highest philanthropic donation in Australia, with most going toward funding scholarships.[109]
The Minderoo Foundation, Forrest's private foundation, was renamed as the Minderoo Group is to be expanded to include higher education contributions. The foundation has given A$270 million through the foundation since 2001.[110] In 2014, Andrew and Nicola Forrest pledged A$65 million over ten years through the Minderoo Foundation, establishing the Forrest Research Foundation to offer scholarships to students pursuing a PhD at a Western Australian university.[111][112] In 2017 Forrest donated A$400 million to medical research and social causes,[113] and in 2019 donated a further A$655 million to expand the existing work of the Minderoo Foundation in areas including cancer research, early childhood development, ocean health, and eliminating modern slavery, the largest ever living donation by any Australian philanthropist.[114]
What can I say? That's all kinds of laughable.
So my point is this: he's not doing anything useful, sensible, or valuable with his charitable works. He's just wasting his time. It would be better to just tax him and give that money to government services that need it and can do a better job. I'm not saying take his whole 4 billion. But if you took 50% and left him with 2 billion for this year, is it really going to impact his life adversely? I mean, this is the same arsehole who campaigned against the Mining Tax. He should be the one to be paying more.
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