Bitter Rinehart feud goes public
|
A bitter family legal dispute between mining-magnate-turned-media-mogul Gina Rinehart and three of her four children has become public after a supression order was lifted yesterday, despite Rinehart’s claims that media attention could result in kidnappings and extortion attempts. Three of Rinehart’s four children — Hope Welker, John Hancock and Bianca Rinehart — are suing their mother, claiming she should be removed as trustee of the family estate which was set up by their grandfather Lang Hancock. Rinehart has long fought for suppression orders to reduce reporting on the legal battle. In a fascinating claim, Rinehart’s lawyers argued — unsuccessfully — that media coverage of the legal struggles would put her family at “risk of kidnapping, death threats and extortion, comparing her plight to the English footballer David Beckham, the US talk show host David Letterman and the late heart surgeon Victor Chang,” reports Louise Hall at The Sydney Morning Herald. As Leo Shanahan writes in The Australian:
Despite Rinehart’s attempts at keeping a surpression order on proceedings, NSW Supreme Court judge Michael Bell deemed that the case would not raise security issues for the family. With the supression order lifted, a number of fascinating emails from Rinehart’s children came to light, pleading their mother for money and noting their safety and social concerns due to the family’s high wealth. Daughter Welker told her mother she was “down to her last $60,000” and needed money for “a cook so you can be sure April is fed right, bodyguard so the kids are safe and housekeeper that is good with the kids so I can go out”. “I don’t think you understand what it means now that the whole world thinks you’re going to be wealthier than Bill Gates — it means we all need bodyguards and very safe homes!! I should have enough money to have a bodyguard, housekeeper and cook. Even my friends who have nothing compared to your wealth have more staff.” Other daughter Bianca — who lives in Vancouver — wrote in an email expressing fears that she would be subject to a similar bomb hoax to Sydney schoolgirl Maddie Pulver, whose parents were very wealthy:
The family feud isn’t just about wanting cash for cooks and security guards. Son John Hancock put a proposal in to Hancock Prospecting last year which the board dismissed, says Peter Kerr in The Australian Financial Review:
Rinehart has been in the press all week after news that she purchased a 15% share in Fairfax Media earlier this week, which many have seen as a move by Rinehart to increase her political and media influence. But rather than being feared as a conservative takeover, commentators should welcome Rinehart’s Fairfax investment, says Ian Hanke in The Age:
The Australian Financial Review — another Fairfax publication — echoed Hanke’s views in its editorial:
The latest rumour floating around about Rinehart’s Fairfax interests is that she is seeking to combine Fairfax Media’s radio stations — including Sydney’s 2UE, Melbourne’s 3AW and Perth’s 6PR — with her close friend John Singleton’s Macquarie Radio Network, which runs Sydney’s 2GB. As Singo told Fairfax for it’s recent Good Weekend profile on Rinehart “We have been able to overtly and covertly attack governments … Because we have people employed by us like Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones and Ray Hadley who agree with her thinking about the development of our resources, we act in concert in that way.” The radio move would work for Ginehart politically, say Andrew Burrell and Stephen Brook at The Australian:
In other bizarre mining-magnate-turned-media-mogul news, Clive Palmer told Lateline last night that he’s considering investing in Fairfax as well. “Fairfax looks very exciting,” Palmer told Lateline host Tony Jones. “You could have an east-west play with Fairfax. Gina could come from the west and buy 15%, and we could buy 30% from the eastern side of Australia and really get the place humming again. “That sounds very attractive, I’ll have to consider that overnight and see what my stockbroker tells me in the morning and my financial advisers. “We’ve certainly got the money and we’d certainly like to see media in Australia become much higher [quality]. “And she’s a very, very smart woman, so if she’s going after Fairfax, there must be something in it.” Challenged later on whether his comments were tongue in cheek, Palmer replied, “I don’t know. You’ll have to wait and see.” |
|
|
|
30 Comments
Anyone who thinks the Oz media needs a female Rupert Murdoch to run that part of the Media which is already owned by Rupert Murdoch himself, has got to have rocks in their heads.
Oh joy, just what we need. Yet more right-wing nutjobs controlling what passes for public media in this country. Surely we have enough intellectually-lazy moral panic merchants in that sector already?? Is it too much to ask for a little balance? A bit broader range in the national conversation? Silly me….
Security may be reasonable, but what on earth entitles anyone to be provided with housekeepers and chefs? Imagine an adult asking their parent to provide them with staff. What a nest of vipers.
one step further to national pride in anti-intellectuallism, courtesy of a gina rinehart golden shower.
What is it with rich people and newspapers?
I guess the right still view them as relevant because they are living/want to live in the past (much like Tony wanting to return to a “Golden Howard Era”)?
No doubt Tony will campaign on family values. No doubt Gina will support him. How much Hancock money has been spent on lawyers trying to sort family arguments?
Bretty said it best. What entitles these people? Get out of our country, you queue jumping welfare bludgers.
@bretty: all a matter of scale and relativity. Clearly this is not a case of demands that are unreasonable given the wealth involved, the ages of the kids and the fact that it was a trust set up to support them in an opulent exceptional way. This isn’t a bunch of petty crims robbing their own mothers house and leaving her destitute.
And now Palmer *weighs in* hahahahaah
Remember, this delightfully svelte Ayn Rand of the West is the one that our ‘Labor’ PM couldn’t wait to debauch the mining tax for. Since the mining tax was halved, Rinehart’s wealth has doubled.
Isn’t the sleeper issue here - to what extent will newspapers (and broadcasters) have a significant influence on public discourse in the future? Decades ago a newspaper magnate could exercise such influence, but aren’t we being told now that old media is one of a multitude of voices, and is increasingly drowned out by its competitors. Trying to use a stake in Fairfax as a means of addressing a perceived imbalance in public debate seems to be a ploy based on anachronistic assumptions of media influence.
WOODEN SHJIPS: In your position I would do some research into Rupert Murdoch’s idea of running a newspaper. Editors say what they’re told to say. Hell, he even demands a photo of an attractive girl in each edition of the Herald Sun aka the Hun. Also there has to be a shot of an attractive animal, in the same edition.
What little Rupert Murdoch doesn’t own in the Oz media will doubtless be told what to do when Reinhardt gathers enough shares. All we need is a Christian fundamentalist expressing her core values. Not!
Venise - that’s missing the point I’m making. The question I’m asking is: if Gina does tell the editor(s) what to say and write, what impact does it have on public opinion and broader public discourse? Mark Pesce and others of his ilk would have us believe the answer is: not much.
WOODEN SHJIPS: Cough cough, ahem, I didn’t miss your point at all, I merely thought it was a pointless point, so I drifted off into a discourse of my own.
Mark Pesce may be many things but I would be interested to know his media smarts. Media influence plays a colossal part in keeping people (mis)informed. And to paraphrase Gertrude Stein: news is news is news. Being comics at one end and/or intellectualism at the other end.
“”Trying to use a stake in Fairfax as a means of addressing a perceived imbalance in public debate seems to be a ploy based on anachronistic assumptions of media influence.”” If I may venture to hypothesise I’d say the media magnate is very much alive, and that in news gathering-using any form of communication tool-will never become different to the way it always has been. It will just get more technically diverse.
@Stephen: nice one. The Dagny Taggart of Pilbara pig iron.
Hmm. Crikey has closed comments (after 8 were posted) on Keane’s Rinehart-internet story…fear of litigation?
Fear not. Clive Palmer and Rinehart will never appear on platform together.
Building regulations.
And Rinehart’s paranoia about “security”, kidnap etc is misplaced.
She just has to avoid Japanese whalers.
I’m genuinely charmed at the notion of Gina listening to 2GB whilst in Sydney. You can take the girl out of the trailer park, but you can’t take the trailer park out of the girl.
No greater sport than watching someone rich as their life unravels, is there? Gina is just the latest in a long line of WA rich-listers whose lives have spiralled out of control once the chickens come home to roost. Bondy went to jail, had a daughter overdose and then his second wife. Robert Holmes a Court died at 50 after his paper “empire”collapsed. Garrick Agnew’s wife shot herself in the stomach and then he died a few years later. Laurie Connell died young after a stint in jail. Tom Hugall died in jail. Peter Beckwith died at 50. Angela Bennett is a very bitter - perhaps a rival for Gina as Australia’s unhappiest person. No doubt about it - too much money, is just never enough of it!
There seems to be an invisible line ‘somewhere’ which, when crossed, the normal rules of decency no longer apply. On this comment trail and concerning Reinhart the line must be somewhere between $1m and $10b. I guess the sport of watching the lives of the rich unravel is of some comfort to others - I don’t know but it does make me sick. The family stuff is family stuff even if off the scale compared to us Mr and Mrs average.
On the other hand we appear to have no protection as a nation from the Murdochs, Packers, Reinharts and Palmers of the world deciding to use their wealth to gain unreasonable leverage in public discourse. These types have already unseated one PM and Murdoch has his on going campain against the government and all the distortions it brings. If we let this continue based on the idea that folks can do what they want with their money even when what they do is clearly well against the interest of the majority of Australians then we’ll deserve what we get - probably to become as idiotic a place as the USA.
So what I’m saying is there are two sides to this coin.
CANNEDHEAT: How does your argument constitute “”there are two sides to this coin.”“?
Your first para states the fact that you dislike reading about other people’s family troubles. (In this case the fact that the woman has AUD$8 billion-20 billion is irrelevant-well it should be if you take your own words literally).
Your second para is a rough sketch of the people who’ve had billions of dollars, with the inherent implication that these people have not always had Australia’s interests at heart, and to be careful we don’t end up like that basket case, America. The place where the media’s senior citizen resides, and whose passport he has.
Basically, Rupert Murdoch owns about 75-80% of Australia’s media; with catastrophic results for this country. Along comes the dainty figure of Gina Reinhart, the woman who is trying to outdo her father-the legendary renaissance figure of Lang Hancock, I don’t think. By her own words she’s a devout Christian. And she wants to control the people which have escaped Rupert’s net. Does Australia deserve this fate?
Yes, because succeeding Australian governments have ignored this very nasty problem. What to do to A) Allow billionaires to buy these toys. B) Deny them the right to harp on with their own political agenda.
There’s the real two-sided coin you mentioned.
Already there is tangible evidence of the negative effect of Reinhart and or Palmer’s influence on the existing Media,the mood of all Editors across the Media is one of terror in relation to the possible getting offside (legal threat) of open debate on these two (to big to question) IPA-like interlopers,this is counter productive imo their rs’s are up for grabs as much as any ones,in fact much more generously than your average interloper.
BRIAN62: With a bit of luck Rupert Murdoch and Gina Rhinestone will lock horns with each other. Which would be very interesting.
@Venise highly likely given Rupes love for things Asian and Mrs Rhinohearts extreme dislike of Asian “things” lol
Here’s one for those poor underpriviledged unsupported young people out there Youtube;Rhino Skin - Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, just saying.
@Venise Post Reinhart takeover (and makeover), Rupert will come to represent the left-wing of our mainstream media while Reinhart will represent the centre. Relatively speaking, of course. And the sheep will continue to be sheep.
I neglected to include potentially uninsured in my last post.lol
SMITH BOB: And I thought I was cynical? Never the less it’s an interesting hypothesis.
@BRIAN: Brilliant. The Rhine Maiden would not be impressed at all, at all. LOL indeed. Cheers