Described as “the gift that keeps on giving”,Australia’s mineral wealth has made mine owners into multibillionaires. But at a time when we pay to import our own gas,are the spoils being shared fairly?
Though Gina Rinehart’s philanthropy is negligible compared with her almost unfathomable wealth,she often deploys it effectively in her own interests.
Documents unearthed in a multibillion-dollar court fight reveal Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and Rio Tinto warned a syndicate of bankers that other dynasties may chase royalties.
The mining magnate’s lawyers have levelled a scathing attack against her eldest children for claiming her absence from the high-stakes Hope Downs battle implied guilt.
After more than two dozen hearings spent poring over 60 years worth of history,the multibillion-dollar showdown between magnate Gina Rinehart,her children and two rival mining dynasties is drawing to a close.
Top-secret documents exchanged in the private stoush between mining magnate Gina Rinehart and her eldest children will be handed to rival dynasties fighting for a slice of a lucrative iron ore mine.
It was 2003 when John Hancock first asked his mother Gina Rinehart why her father’s wish to leave his grandchildren control of a family trust once brimming with mining assets had not been executed.
Faced with leaving a bankrupt estate,magnate Lang Hancock spent his final days trying to reverse moves to fund possessions for wife Rose Porteous,the court was told.
Details of the feud between pioneer Lang Hancock and his daughter Gina Rinehart before his death have been laid bare in a multibillion-dollar Supreme Court civil case.
Hancock Prospecting’s lawyer rubbished his opponents’ characterisation of Lang Hancock’s letter to his daughter,insisting it was of “peripheral relevance”.