Gina Rinehart

Georgina "Gina" Hope Rinehart (born 9 February 1954 at St John's, Perth, Western Australia) is the Chairman of Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd (HPPL), and the daughter of mining magnate Lang Hancock. In 2011 it was estimated she was Australia's wealthiest person.

A subsidiary of HPPL is Hancock Coal Pty Ltd (HCPL), which is currently seeking to develop the Alpha Coal Project and the Kevin's Corner Project in Queensland. Rinehart is a vocal opponent of a carbon tax and a promoter of climate sceptics. She is also a member of Australians for Northern Development & Economic Vision (ANDEV), a lobby group promoting major developments in northern Australia.

Early life

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Hancock lived with her parents at Nunyerry, 60 kilometers north of Wittenoom in Western Australia until she was four. Wittenoom is best known as the town where the workers from the nearby asbestos mine lived. She later boarded at St Hilda's Anglican School for Girls in Perth, and afterwards studied economics for one year at Sydney University.

Hancock Prospecting

Following the death of her father in March 1992, Rinehart became Executive Chairman of HPPL and the HPPL Group of companies. She commenced an acrimonious legal fight in 1992 with her stepmother, Rose Porteous, over the circumstances of her father's death and control of the Hancock assets. The court cases and negotiations ultimately took 14 years to settle.

In March 2011 she was inducted into WA Women’s Hall of Fame. The announcement stated that Rineart "has transformed her family company, Hancock Prospecting, from a small prospecting company to a global mining company. She has contributed financially to a wide variety of causes, from swimming to health and medical research, including the Hancock Family Breast Cancer Foundation in 1993, Princess Margaret Hospital and the Bendat Family Comprehensive Cancer Centre. She has also worked with the Mannkal Economic Foundation, which mentors young West Australians, and has helped Pilbara women artists achieve their dreams. The Hope Educational Scholarship helps Cambodian women and she is a director of the South-East Asian Investigations into Social and Humanitarian Activities."

Wealth

In the 2010 BRW Rich 200 she was described as "Australia's richest woman", with an estimated net worth at A$4.75..

In 2011 Forbes Asia named her as Australia's richest person, with a net worth of A$9 billion, a rise of A$7 billion from the previous year.

Media interests

Channel Ten

In November 2010 it was announced that Rinehart had bought a 10% shareholding in the television company Ten Network Holdings. Announcing the shareholding in a media statement, Rinehart's company stated that "our company group is interested in making an investment towards the media business given its importance to the nation's future and has selected Channel 10 for this investment."

In a media release Ten announced that Rinehart would join the board following the company's December Annual General Meeting.

In one of his columns, Andrew Bolt, a News Limited columnist and climate change sceptic, posed the question why Rinehart would invest in Ten. "It is because the shares are cheap? Because there's big money in Simpsons re-runs? Because Channel 10 is going places now that James Packer has an 18 per cent share, to be split with friend Lachlan Murdoch? If that were all, I wouldn't bore you. But my strong and not entirely uninformed hunch is that much bigger issues are at play involving our country's future and threats to the wealth we've taken for granted. I can't disclose just why I suspect that, but read for yourself a clue in the terse statement put out by Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting on Monday: 'Our company group is interested in making an investment towards the media business given its importance to the nation's future and has selected Channel 10 for this investment'. Rinehart is on a mission. Channel 10 is just the vehicle," he wrote.

"I have no idea what Rinehart hopes now to do to Ten, if anything. Nor could I guess what chances she'd have of turning it into, say, an Australian Fox News, even if she wanted to. What would Packer say? What would Murdoch, son of the Fox News owner? But I do have an idea of what worries Rinehart about our future. The fact is that even in these green times 40 per cent of all we earn through exports comes from mines. That includes more than $50 billion a year from iron ore, and $55 billion from the coal trade that the Greens vow to phase out for being 'dirty'," he wrote.

A few months later it was reported that Channel Ten had recorded a pilot program hosted by Bolt. Amanade Meade reported that "sources said a keen advocate of the show was Ten board member and Australia's richest woman, Gina Rinehart, who is a fan of Bolt's work. Ms Rinehart has also been heard to complain about the alleged left-wing bias of Ten's popular 7PM Project, and to say the network needs a right-wing Fox News-style show in its line-up."

Bolt's program, The Bolt Report, first aired on May 8, 2011 at 10am. "It will be like my blog, made for television," Bolt said. "We'll be talking politics, the media and pop culture. We'll cut through the spin and have a laugh. We plan to be unpredictable."

Fairfax Media

In December 2010 it was reported that Rinehart had bought a significant shareholding in Fairfax Media, which publishes the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age and other newspapers and radio stations. It was reported that her shareholding was "well below the 5 per cent level that would require her to disclose her interest to the Australian Securities Exchange." Subsequently she continued buying Fairfax shares, accumulating a parcel of approximately 4% estimated to be worth $120 million. The shareholding was bought by Hanrine Investment, a subsidiary of Hancock Prospecting.

Opposition to Mineral Resources Rent Tax

In 2010 Rinehart joined a campaign with Andrew Forrest and others against the Federal Government's proposed Mineral Resource Rent Tax. Soon afterwards she took a 10% stake in Network Ten; James Packer had acquired an 18% stake in the same company soon before. Since then she has also acquired a substantial stake in Fairfax Media. This foray into media ownership is a major change from previous corporate activities.

Climate change sceptics

In January 2010 the organisers of a tour to Australia of climate sceptic Christopher Monckton revealed that part of the $100,000 costs of the tour would be met by Rinehart. Case Smit, one of the tour organisers, told Noose News that they wrote to Rinehart when the organiser of the Perth leg of the tour could no longer help out. Smit said that "She said, ‘I’ll get my office to organise it’. So Gina Rinehart’s office is the contact for the Perth event."

In an opinion piece, originally published in Australian Resource and Investment, Rinehart wrote of her delight at polls indicating majority opposition to the introduction of a carbon tax and specifically singled out the need to exempt at least thermal coal from it. She wrote:

"We are showing we can think for ourselves, and are not swayed by the global warming fear campaign. Remember when the mainstream media was running frightening commentary about carbon-induced global warming? We read and heard about how oceans would rise, flooding our homes, and how, over years, we’d be scorched due to the increasing heat. Have you noticed that we don’t hear much any more about global warming? The theme has now changed to carbon-dioxide induced ‘climate change’"

"Let’s consider climate change – the world has constantly changed climate and will continue to do so. Even before human civilisation, the world went through ice ages and periods of global warming. There will always be changes that affect our climate, even if we close down all thermal-fired power stations, steel mills and other manufacturing operations, putting employees out of work and drastically changing our way of life. Furthermore, there will always be geothermal activity that spew out heat and ash and this activity does affect the climate. I am yet to hear scientific evidence to satisfy me that if the very, very small amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (approximately 0.83 per cent) was increased, it could lead to significant global warming."

"I have never met a geologist or leading scientist who believes adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will have any significant effect on climate change, especially not from a relatively small country like Australia. I have, however, had the benefit of listening to leading scientists and reading their work."

"How would a carbon tax or MRRT on thermal coal (used for moist of Australia’s electricity generation) economically impact Australians? Electricity costs would go up, for a start. Almost every item that you can think of requires electricity at one point or another in its production, storage or distribution. It is not just the rich mining companies that would be affected, but every man, woman and child in Australia, not to mention blue collar workers whose jobs in steel mills, power stations and manufacturing facilities would suffer or disappear. The sooner we can, as a majority, let our politicians know that Australians are fed up with wasting taxpayers money and do not want a carbon tax or MRRT on thermal coal (at least), the better."

"Let’s take a quick look at some estimated from third party sources – which our government is not telling us. If imposed at a rate of $26 per tonne the carbon tax would cost:

• 126 000 jobs in regional Australia (according to Access Economics);

• 10 000 jobs and 16 coal mines (according to ACIL economic consultancy);

• 24 000 jobs in other areas of mining (according to Concept Economics)

• 45 000 jobs in other energy-intensive industries (according to Frontier Economics)

"And that is just for starters. And what for? It won’t stop China and India from continuing to emit carbon dioxide on their own account. These nations understand that you cannot raise a populations standard of living without also increasing energy consumption."

"...Families and industries need to be told that carbon tax and the MRRT (on thermal coal at least) have been abandoned, so that we can all stop adding this burden to our increasing national debt. But to get to the position we must bother to turn up at the ‘No Carbon Tax’ and ‘No MRRT’ rallies, email our politicians, write to our media industry, take part in talk-back radio and support organisations and people with the guts to stand up on these important issues. We can’t wait any longer for Australia’s business ‘leaders’ to finally stand up on this issue! If we don’t stand up, we run the risk of seeing the consequences of such non-action in Australia and I sincerely ope we don’t. The sooner the carbon tax and MRRT are gone the sooner we stop wasting our time and money on these endeavours, and the easier it will be to finance for investment in Australia."

Articles and resources

Related SourceWatch articles

• Australia and coal

External resources

• "Lang Hancock's daughter comes of age", Australian_Women's_Weekly, February 19, 1975.

External links

• Video portrait on ABC's Hungry Beast

Wikipedia also has an article on Gina Rinehart. This article may use content from the Wikipedia article under the terms of the GFDL.