Billionaire Andrew Forrest's call for Australia to take more risks
Mining magnate Andrew Forrest warns Australia’s prosperity hangs in the balance unless the nation abandons its comfort zone and embraces “crazy brave” innovation plans.
Andrew Forrest, the billionaire, philanthropist and sometimes critic of US president Donald Trump, wants Australians to “have a crack”.
We’re a “remarkable” people, he argues. Our outward ease charms those from elsewhere, but also disguises a deep efficiency.
Australians get stuff done, especially in adversity, by pulling together.
“We kind of don’t tolerate show-offs,” he says. “We’re not a class conscious nation. (We) get on with it and achieve the results. (Our) medical systems or engineering systems or technologies – they are leaders in the world.”
But we collectively need to take risks, he says.
Forrest himself has taken many big risks, of deed and speech. His fortunes fluctuate by the billions of dollars year to year. Even his critics cannot accuse Forrest of thinking small.
He says Australia’s prosperity depends on this spirit of innovation. Try out some “crazy brave plan As”, albeit coupled with a “bulletproof plan Bs”.
Most of the plan As won’t come off, but that’s OK. We will “fail our way to the top”.
“I ask every Australian to have a crack,” he says. “To take a little more risk, have a bulletproof plan B and accept that failure is invaluable. You can’t do without it on the road to success.”
Forrest, 64, is a dreamer of nature who founded an iron ore mining company called Fortescue. He aims to entirely power the company’s Pilbara operations with renewables by 2030.
He has a PhD in marine ecology. Forrest’s varied companies have about 25,000 employees. They build ships, run cattle, operate wind farms and make Akubra hats.
If there was a cover-all ethos for his companies, it might be what he describes as “fact-based ambition”.
Climate change is Forrest’s starting point for issues such as China relations and the renewable power push. He says that climate change tipping points have already emerged – not that the first world seems to have noticed.
Addressing climate change is the basis for one of his bigger ideas.
Iron ore for him, along with Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart, represents fabulous personal wealth. The material, used for steel, also keeps the country afloat – small shifts in the iron ore price can determine if a federal budget is in deficit or surplus.
We ship almost 900 million tonnes, or typically far more than $100 billion, of iron ore overseas each year, mostly to China, where it is processed for steel – the “ultimate recyclable material”.
Why wouldn’t we process the iron ore here? Use the solar and wind energy that the Pilbara boasts to power the processing of green iron?
Forrest wants Australia to be “the greatest processor of iron on the planet”, in a move that would generate hundreds of thousands of jobs.
The processors would use no fossil fuels but instead rely on AI, nature’s ready-made fuel sources, and batteries.
“Let’s stop shipping raw material,” he says. “Let’s ship the value-added product, the base of all steels everywhere in the world.
“The fact that we have some of the greatest intensity of solar and not bad wind sitting atop our iron-ore fields will one day be seen as, well, that was obvious. Well, it’s not obvious now because it’s a little bit scary and it’s easy to criticise it and it’s so much easier to listen to big company propaganda saying that we don’t have to change.”
The world will demand more and more steel as living standards rise.
“Right now, we just ship iron-ore,” he says. “Well, OK, that’s OK to get going. But we’ve been going for decades. The community itself needs to see the huge opportunity in becoming the base product for the steel industry everywhere.”
Green hydrogen might eventually be part of the equation, too, though Forrest’s promises to produce green hydrogen, amid investments in the hundreds of millions of dollars (including $60m in federal and state government support), have been parked for now.
Fossil fuels (and its industry leaders) attract his public ire – he calls it “the most powerful, most politically manipulative system that has ever existed”.
Forrest certainly seeks to improve the world with his wealth. He has invested in AI technology to make cancers non-lethal. In 2017, he and then wife Nicola gave $400m to cancer research and an end to modern slavery.
His understanding of climate change is largely driven by his attempts to find the remains of his uncle, Flying Officer David Forrest, a RAAF pilot who was killed in 1943 during a WWII mission in Papua New Guinea.
Villages there keep rebuilding further and further inland because of rising tides.
Forrest was even more visible than usual in July when he, along with other business titans, accompanied Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to China.
He surfaced in New York, where he berated Trump for his climate change “lies” and invited Trump to snorkel with him to see the damage.
Then Forrest headed to London, in part to promote his four RM Williams stores there.
The stores are doing well, he says, decked from head to toe in his brand, as he ponders questions about national interest and whether Trump might sue him.
Forrest is proud of his RM Williams story, which he has told many times. The company’s Adelaide workshop staff numbers have increased 30 per cent in the past five years.
“There’s a large number of Australians who don’t want to be scientists,” he says.
“They don’t want to be astronauts. They don’t want to be business people. They love working with their hands. Well, RM Williams is perfect for that.”
The nation’s renewables energy trajectory in Australia pleases him. But like all monster initiatives, there have been failings.
“Governments say ‘it’s national interest, we’re just going to put a bloody great set of poles across your farm and suck it up, princess’,” he says.
“No, that’s not a fair go.”
Forrest has embraced AI. Fortescue already applies it to great operational benefit. He has invested in AI’s possibilities for climate change and health.
But Forrest also cites nature – every positive has a negative.
He identifies a “dangerous, flashing red line.” If AI comes to recursively improve itself at the speed of light, he fears it could leave humans behind.
Forrest proudly speaks of Australia’s independence, though he has attracted criticism for his attacks on those who question China’s motives.
He argues that Australia can have more than one best friend.
Which takes him back to Trump. America needs Australia badly, he says. Australia should be treated with absolute respect.
“I kind of like that as an example,” he says of criticising Trump. “Australians speak truth to power. We’re casual, informal, but underneath it we’ve got really strong principles and we’re very efficient.
“We don’t care if you’re a pauper or a president. You get called out if you are speaking complete bulldust.”
This article is part of the Back Australia series, which was supported by Australian Made Campaign, Harvey Norman, Westpac, Bunnings, Coles, TechnologyOne, REA Group, Cadbury, R.M.Williams, Qantas, Vodafone and BHP.
Originally published as Billionaire Andrew Forrest's call for Australia to take more risks
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