AUSTRALIA'S richest woman Gina Rinehart and fellow billionaire Andrew Forrest shared in more than $100,000 worth of taxpayer-funded handouts in their companies under Royalties for Regions last financial year.
While the WA Government announced last week it was increasing household fees to manage "the state's finances in difficult times", in 2011-12 it handed $61,829 for an "innovative drilling" program, to Mr Forrest's Fortescue Metals Group, which is worth about $10.74 billion.
And though the Government has been demanding "efficiency" cuts from its agencies for the past four years, it gave a further $38,551 from the same program to Hancock Prospecting, whose boss, Mrs Rinehart, was last year reported as earning about $600 a second.
Since 2009, the drilling program, which is part of the royalties' Exploration Incentive Scheme, has paid more than $9.2 million to resource companies, some worth several hundred million dollars.
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