Rinehart says welfare recipients sending us into debt

Mining billionaire Gina Rinehart believes Australia's welfare system and its recipients are sending the country further into debt.

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Ms Rinehart said Australians are "living beyond our means" in a recent column for Australian Resources and Investment magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

"Australians have to work hard or actually harder and smarter to create the revenue to be able to pay that bill," she said.

"I can already hear the left boiling with rage that I dare challenge their bottomless pit and the belief that money doesn't have to be earned before it is spent mentality."

Ms Reinhart said Australia is going further into debt each day and there is no clear plan to get back.

She also said Australian politicians needed to look at former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as an example on how to "cut spending, cut waste, cut the shackles and back hard work".