Anthony McDonald

They're really shooting the lights out relative to in Australia where it's a grind.

Yeah.

And if we have a year where earnings per share is up 5%, everyone sits around and pats themselves on the back when it's probably just because of commodity prices.

I mean, I hate to be too bearish on Australia because I love Australia and I'd love to see it do well, but I just don't see how we attract the capital out of the US when you are seeing that earnings growth.

All right, James, let's move on to our second topic, and we've got probably the courtroom judgment of the year this week.

Australia's richest person, Gina Reinhart, has been in a years-long battle with the Wright family, another Pilbara iron ore pioneer family in Perth, over who should get how much of the iron ore profits, and we're talking billions of dollars in profit here, and own stakes in some of the big iron ore mines now run by Rio Tinto and BHP.

James, the case was heard over 51 days in 2023.

There were a bunch of sub-battles within a larger battle, including within Reinhardt's own family and two of her kids, whether they get back into the family trust.

And the judge, Justice Jennifer Smith, took another two and a half years to deliver her judgment.

Yikes.

It landed in the form of a 1,655-page document on Wednesday.

A huge judgment.

I mean, this one needs the big chook's brain here.

Yeah.

Can you tell us...

1,655 pages.

Yeah, good explanation.

All right, Gina Reinhart's going to have to make some payments here, and she could be out of pocket quite a bit, you know, like enough to send 99.9% of us bankrupt.

But, you know, good thing her Hancock prospecting has the best part of $20 billion in the bank.

So the Wrights think they're owed probably $800 or $900 million just on the hope down royalties.