Gina Rinehart's Family Fued

Langley Hancock became a very rich man when he discovered the world’s largest iron ore deposit in 1952. Towards the end of his life, he employed an attractive maid/housekeeper, Rose Porteous, 39 years his junior, who he later married, much to the disgust of his daughter Gina Rinehard who handled her father’s business affairs.


Lang was infatuated with Rose and built her a mansion modelled after the Tara Plantation from Gone with the Wind overlooking the Swan river in Perth. He also gave her money, jewellery and investments in real estate. After his death, legal battles ensued between Rose and Gina over many years but today, Gina Rinehard is respected for being a very clever business woman. In June 2011, Citigroup estimated that she was on course to overtake Carlos Slim, the Mexican magnate worth 46 billion pounds (US$74 billion) and Bill Gates who is worth 35 billion pounds (US$56 billion), mainly because she owns her companies outright.


Now Gina Rinehart’s dirty laundry will be aired in public after she tried unsuccessfully to suppress details of her family trust battles. Three of Rinehart's four children, Hope Rinehart Welker, John Hancock, and Bianca Reinhart took their mother to court over a commercial dispute relating to a family trust fund and want their mother removed as trustee. Her youngest daughter Ginia is the only child still on side with her mother.


Personal emails from two of her daughters were tendered in the Supreme Court yesterday and they make interesting reading.


From: Hope Rinehart
Sent: Saturday, 30 July 2011 8:30PM
To: Gina Rinehart

Hi Mem,

I need a few things for my birthday (cook so you can be sure April is fed right, bodyguard so the kids are safe and housekeeper that is good w kids so if I need to go out I can) and I found a great agency here that sources the best, here are the descriptions and costs, I would buy them myself but I’m down to my last $60,000 and your only paying my husband $1 a year.

Chef/Cook

Description: A Cook or Chef prepares detailed menus and food for most or all family and social events. A Cook or Chef may also prepare meals for the staff. The household Chef is responsible for anything food or kitchen-related, including organization, clean up, shipping for all food-related supplies and menu planning. There are many levels of cooks from the basic family cook to the school trained gourmet chef.


Annual Salary Range: $40,000 to $225,000+

Bodyguard

Description: Protects clients when in public and helps maintain their privacy. A Bodyguard may be the driver, a chaperone or remain at the house, possibly working with a team. He or she is usually physically fit and trained in personal protection techniques and martial arts. A Bodyguard may be required to carry a firearm. Past experience as a police officer may be required.
Annual Salary range: $55 000 to $100 000

Housekeeper

Description: A Housekeeper in charge of running the home, which may include overseeing other employees, cleaning, doing the laundry, ironing, dusting, silver polishing, vacuuming and running errands. Housekeeper duties may also include some meal preparation and/or childcare duties. Housekeepers can live-in or out.
Annual Salary Range: $35 000 to $55 000+


From: Hope Rinehart
Sent: Sunday, 31 July 2011 1:14AM
To: Gina Rinehart
Subject: RE:

I can’t live in Australia or Singapore, it’s not fair on me to have to live there and horribly unfair for me to have to expose the kids to that. It’s hard enough being a kid, let alone the peer pressure that comes from being the wealthiest one in the country.

I love America, the girls love it. I’m happy here. Your media is minimal and positive here. I really do need a safer apartment but ironically I can’t afford it! I don’t want to have to move back to one of your `desirable’ countries again just to save every cent I can to finally live here where I’m happy, my children are happy and I can offer them the best school and universities in the world. It’s not fair you are selfishly pressuring me to move to Singapore and Australia just because you hate America.

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!! Especially the children who are small and easily targeted for kidnap. No country (not even Singapore) is safe. I don’t have the money to protect myself or my children and it scares me. 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.

I hate that we can’t be happy and do our own thing and spend the holidays together. I hate that everything is conditional. I’m tired and I don’t want to fight and I just want to make the most our of everyday I have left.

From: XXXXX

Sent: Thursday, 4 August 2011, 11:40AM


On Wednesday Gina Rinehart closed in on becoming the single biggest shareholder in Fairfax Media Ltd., the country's oldest newspaper publisher. This gives her a 12% stake in Fairfax, publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald and other newspapers, at a cost of 152 million Australian dollars (US$161.6 million), up from her previous stake of just under 5%. Last year, Ms. Rinehart bought a 10% stake in Channel Ten Network Holdings Ltd, she said she was interested in "making an investment towards the media business given its importance to the nation's future." So should the Labor Party be worried? Definitely!


And from Ms Rinehart’s point of view, the nation’s future isn’t looking good. Her opposition to Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd’s policies is well known, especially the planned new taxes on the mining industry and the carbon tax. As boss of Hancock Prospecting, this clever lady watches over a mining empire so vast, it brings tears to the eyes and she is thinking of branching out into coal, uranium and base metals.