Hancock says facility is ‘modern necessity’ but opponents argue the noise would disrupt local businesses
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Gina Rinehart’s company has claimed helicopter pads are a necessity of modern business as it fights to install one at its new headquarters in West Perth.
The City of Perth on Tuesday recommended councillors block the request from Hancock Iron Ore to install a helipad as it redevelops its offices.
Continue reading...Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart has previously donated to Institute of Public Affairs but thinktank won’t say if she remains a donor
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A thinktank known for its rejection of the climate crisis and a conservation group that has opposed renewable energy projects refused to identify their funders during a fiery Senate inquiry into climate and energy misinformation on Wednesday.
Chair of the committee, Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson, asked Rainforest Reserves Australia’s vice-president, Steven Nowakowski, who had funded nine full-page newspaper advertisements promoting an open letter attacking a shift to renewable energy and promoting nuclear.
Continue reading...One Nation leader also seen with Gina Rinehart – and many of her talking points align with mining magnate
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Pauline Hanson skipped parliament this week to speak at a conservative conference at Donald Trump’s luxury resort in Florida, where she was pictured alongside Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest woman.
The One Nation leader, who resided at Mar-a-Lago ahead of her address at the multi-day event run by the Conservative Political Action Conference, lambasted both major parties in Australia during the speech while praising the US administration for deporting immigrants, bombing drug cartel boats and supercharging mining projects. Tickets to CPAC ranged from $US5,000 to $US25,000.
This article and headline was amended on 6 November, 2025, to clarify that tickets to CPAC ranged from $US5,000 to $US25,000 per person.
Continue reading...Hanson’s office cites meetings with industry representatives and a One Nation party executive who later changed his name to Aussie Trump
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Parliament’s expenses watchdog has cleared Pauline Hanson over using taxpayer funds to attend Gina Rinehart’s birthday party, after an eight-month investigation in which Hanson explained she had travelled to Perth to meet a new One Nation MP who later changed his name to “Aussie Trump”.
Hanson’s office told the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority (Ipea) she held meetings with Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting over environmental legislation during the March 2024 trip, as well as attending the same birthday party and celebration which former opposition leader Peter Dutton reportedly visited for just an hour.
Continue reading...Naydene Robinson says she hopes to reach an ‘amicable’ settlement that recognises her mother as Lang Hancock’s child
An Aboriginal woman who believes she is Gina Rinehart’s niece is calling on Australia’s richest person to take a DNA test to prove their family connection.
Naydene Robinson, the daughter of Sella Robinson, who claimed she was fathered by Lang Hancock at Mulga Downs station in the 1930s, says she wants to meet Rinehart and “resolve any doubts” about her links to the Hancock family. Sella’s mother worked as a musterer and in domestic labour at Mulga Downs.
Continue reading...Ad Standards Community Panel upholds complaint over Hancock Prospecting’s promotion in the Weekend Australian
The advertising regulator has found that Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting misled consumers with an unsubstantiated claim that gas was clean, in an online advertisement in The Australian last year.
Ads for Hancock Prospecting’s recruitment webpage futureaustralianjobs.com ran in the digital edition of the Weekend Australian in October 2024.
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Continue reading...Seven reveals its latest psephological device as the network makes an early start on election coverage. Plus: Daily Telegraph’s tiny correction for big maths fail
The date for the federal election has not been set but that hasn’t stopped the Seven network from unveiling its Election Needle, a gimmick resembling a car’s speedometer which they say will predict whether Anthony Albanese or Peter Dutton is winning the election.
The network that brought you the “Screen of Dreams” and “The Panic Station” during the 2022 race between Scott Morrison and Albanese rolled out the Election Needle’s first prediction this week.
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Continue reading...Dutton’s cabinet reshuffle added the shadow minister of government efficiency role to Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s position – but it sounds a bit familiar
On 22 January, Gina Rinehart said: “If we are sensible, we should set up a Doge [Department of Government Efficiency] immediately, reduce government waste, government tape and regulations.”
Mere days later, on 25 January, Peter Dutton appointed Jacinta Nampijinpa Price as the shadow minister for government efficiency (Smoge?), describing her new job as to cut “wasteful spending”.
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Court to rule in Pauline Hanson-Mehreen Faruqi case
A federal court judge is ready to rule on whether Pauline Hanson made a racial slur when she told Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi to go back to Pakistan.
Continue reading...Opposition leader, who says Anthony Albanese is ‘obfuscating’ in his answers on Qantas upgrades, says he never personally asked mining magnate
Peter Dutton has admitted his office asked the mining billionaire Gina Rinehart’s company for a lift on a Hancock Prospecting jet to a Bali bombing memorial service, days after he said he had never personally asked Australia’s richest person for help with flights around Australia.
The opposition leader said his office’s request to Hancock came after he claimed the government would not help him get a flight on a special purpose flight, that commercial options were not available, and that a chartered jet would be too expensive. The admission came as Dutton again ridiculed Anthony Albanese for his explanations over the widening Qantas upgrades scandal, accusing the prime minister of being “dishonest”.
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Continue reading...Billionaire wrote to the National Gallery weeks before furore erupted, after a ‘concerned friend’ had told her about the now infamous painting
Gina Rinehart wrote to the National Gallery of Australia a month before the furore erupted about a portrait of her in the gallery, saying a “concerned friend” had brought it to her attention.
The email, released to Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws, was sent on behalf of Rinehart to Nick Mitzevich, the director of the NGA and Ryan Stokes, the chair of the gallery, on 15 April.
Continue reading...Technology figures including Afterpay founders rise up AFR rich list rankings, reflecting ‘changing nature’ of Australian economy
Australia’s rich have continued to grow their fortunes, with the tech and property sectors creating more of our top earners, according to this year’s Australian Financial Review’s rich list.
Gina Rinehart has kept her top spot for the fifth year in a row on the annual list, which reveals the total wealth of the 200 richest people in Australia increased 11% to $624.9bn, even as the country struggled with high inflation and a cost-of-living crisis.
Continue reading...Visitors have been flocking to the National Gallery of Australia amid the controversy over Vincent Namatjira’s painting of Rinehart, director tells hearing
The mining magnate Gina Rinehart gifted a painting of herself to Australia’s National Portrait Gallery, but there appear to be strings attached.
A Senate estimates hearing on Friday heard that the gallery’s board was processing a deed of gift made by Australia’s richest woman – an approved portrait of herself.
Continue reading...Dan Ilic wanted to project Vincent Namitjira’s work after Australia’s richest woman tried to have it removed from the National Gallery
An Australian comedian has dropped his plan to broadcast Vincent Namatjira’s contentious portrait of Gina Rinehart to thousands of tourists and New Yorkers in Times Square.
Dan Ilic told Guardian Australia on Tuesday lunchtime that, after exceeding his crowdfunding target of A$30,000, his stunt would go live in Times Square at 8pm on Friday night.
Continue reading...Swimming Queensland chief Kevin Hasemann says ‘I’ve never been to a gallery’ and furore has ‘evolved into something I could never have imagined’
The head of Swimming Queensland has defended a campaign that saw Olympic champions lobby the National Gallery of Australia to take down portraits of their patron, Gina Rinehart, because they were deemed “offensive”.
An acrylic colour portrait by Vincent Namatjira of Australia’s richest woman was the target of the campaign along with a second black and white portrait by Namatjira in ink and pencil.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Opposition leader travelled at own expense to lavish party, but documents reveal two staff also made the trip to Perth
Peter Dutton’s office claimed nearly $6,000 in public expenses for staff and security to travel to Perth with the opposition leader when he attended Gina Rinehart’s lavish birthday party.
Dutton’s office has said he travelled at his own expense to the party for Australia’s richest woman, which included a horseriding performance, multiple large cakes and onstage pyrotechnics. But travel information obtained under freedom of information shows members of Dutton’s team – which his office said included a staffer and a security detail – claimed travel from Melbourne to Perth and back again on 29 February, the night of the party on the banks of the Swan River.
Continue reading...Federal opposition leader told audience at Roy Hill mine that parents and teachers should instruct children about benefits of mining
Peter Dutton was flown to a party at the Pilbara mine of Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, by another billionaire rich-lister, where he made a speech suggesting parents and teachers talk to children about the positives of the mining sector.
In a speech at Hancock Prospecting’s Roy Hill mine in November last year, Dutton repeatedly thanked those working in resources. He described the work carried out at the mine as a “national treasure”.
Continue reading...The $1.7bn offer for Azure Minerals comes during a rush of dealmaking for the metal used in batteries
Gina Rinehart has teamed up with a Chilean miner to take control of a prized lithium asset in the mineral-rich Pilbara, creating a path for Australia’s richest person to become a major producer of the key metal used in electric vehicle batteries.
Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and Sociedad Quimica y Minera (SQM) lodged a $1.7bn bid for Azure Minerals, according to a stock exchange announcement on Tuesday.
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The minister for sport and aged care, Anika Wells, says her focus is on people in sport, not the infrastructure, following the announcement Victoria was pulling out of hosting the Commonwealth Games.
Wells has told ABC Radio she was not warned by Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, ahead of time about the decision, and found out along with the rest of the country when he stood up to make the announcement.
I care for our athletes. I think that that dream of competing on home soil for your country is one of the most potent dreams that motivate our high performance athletes and possibly our kids as well to go from from playground to podium.
But given how many events that Australia does already have on the green and gold runway and the World Cups – we’re hosting four Women’s World Cups across the next five years, including the one that is on right now – as long as we have opportunities for people to go from playground to podium.
Governments continue to make decisions that disregard or contradict the Agreement.
… Overall progress against the priority reforms has been slow, uncoordinated and piecemeal.
Here is potential for the proposed Voice to the Australian Parliament (as well as state and territory representative bodies), together with current treaty processes and justice commissions, to strengthen accountability for matters covered by the Agreement.
But regardless of the outcomes of these processes, governments will still be responsible for adopting a fundamentally new way of developing and implementing policies and programs that affect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, as they have committed to do in the Agreement.
Continue reading...Senex Energy says extra fuel will be for domestic use but plans are yet to secure state or federal environmental approvals
Gas producer Senex, which is jointly owned by South Korea’s steel giant Posco and Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart, has planned a more than $1bn expansion to its Queensland gasfields with the bulk of the extra fuel apparently to be earmarked for domestic use.
The company, which is seeking federal and state approval for two sites adjacent to its Atlas and Roma North projects in the Surat Basin, made the announcement ahead of a speech by the resources minister, Madeleine King. It still has to clear some state regulatory hurdles, Senex said.
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