Georgina Hope "Gina" Rinehart is well on her way to becoming the world's richest person.
The only child of iron ore magnate Lang Hancock, Rinehart owns three-quarters of Australian mining giant Hancock Prospecting that she inherited from her late father in 1992.
Thanks to Australia's resources boom and the rising cost of minerals, Rinehart is a very wealthy woman. In 2006, she became Australia's first female billionaire and in 2011, Citigroup made the claim that Rinehart was on track to becoming the world's richest person, potentially surpassing Bill Gates and Carlos Slim.
Until recently, the 58-year-old Rinehart sought to keep her private life private. But she's recently emerged as a public figure with radical views who occasionally puts her foot in her mouth.
Rinehart's comments about 'jealous' poor people caught everyone's attention in August.
Rinehart was recently quoted by the Australian Resources and Investment magazine as saying, "if you're jealous of those with more money, don't just sit there and complain; do something to make more money yourself—spend less time drinking, or smoking and socializing, and more time working."
Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan said in a statement that the quote was "an insult to the millions of Australian workers who go to work and slog it out to feed the kids and pay the bills."
She was also lambasted by the media when she called for an Australian miners' wage cut.
Rinehart said in a recent video on the Sydney Mining Club's website that Australian workers should take a wage cut to be more competitive with African workers with a salary of $2 a day.
In Rinehart's opinion, Australia has become too expensive for the mining industry, and she suggests getting rid of recent taxes levied on miners as well as wage cuts for workers.
It is estimated that the mining heiress herself makes over $1 million every 30 minutes.
This video starts to get uncomfortable around the 4:20 minute mark.
The mining heiress fully emerged as a public figure in 2010 when she took a radical stance on tax policy.
Despite her penchant for privacy, Rinehart joined a campaign protesting the Labor Party's mining "super tax" that caught the media's attention.
The impassioned Rinehart reportedly jumped on a flatbed truck once owned by her father and bellowed, "Axe the tax!" into a megaphone until she was hoarse.
The tax, known as the Minerals Resource Rent Tax, went into effect this July and will tax 30% of the "super profits" of mining coal or iron ore in Australia in an attempt to more evenly distribute the wealth from the resources boom. It will affect companies with annual profits of over $75 million.
Rinehart believes the tax will drive away investments worth billions of dollars.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider