Article by Jenna Clark courtesy of the Australian.
Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart has made a cameo appearance on Pauline Hanson’s hit animation series, Please Explain.
Mrs Rinehart’s likeness was captured by the show’s production crew, Stepmates, then, to the surprise of everyone involved, she recorded her own voice for the character.
Ms Hanson’s chief of staff James Ashby approached the mining magnate about the show during a recent visit to Rinehart’s Roy Hill mining summit.
“I simply asked that if she liked her character, would she consider voicing a part in the episode,” Mr Ashby told Diary. “She saw me and without even having to be prompted, she said ‘I love my character, and yes!’.”
Ms Hanson is the only other star whose real voice features in the series. The rest, including that of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, are impressions.
The episode, which dropped online on Friday, has clocked up more than 62,000 views on YouTube and close to 500,000 on TikTok, and attempts to highlight the importance of the resources sector using the online fantasy game, Minecraft.
“There are those who want to shut down the resource sector for their own ideological reasons. They will do whatever it takes, even if it means strangling the nation in red tape that isn’t designed to increase safety or protect the environment, it’s designed to shut things down,” Hanson posted to social media while promoting the episode.
Greens leader Adam Bandt is, for this series, painted as the ideologically driven villain, while the PM just wants to be liked. Mrs Rinehart plays Roy, the hero.
Mrs Rinehart appears at the end of what is essentially a five- minute commercial for mining telling Albanese: “Albo, it’s me, Gina Rinehart”.
