Gina Rinehart says she and her father were close before he died as a court hears the pair had a “major rift” over racial slurs about his wife Rose Porteous.

August 14, 2023

Reclusive mining billionaire Gina Rinehart has accused the media of ignoring the truth in its coverage of a trial over billions of dollars of her iron ore riches.

Australia’s wealthiest person says she and her mining pioneer father Lang Hancock were close before he died in 1992.

“It’s saddening that media likes to ignore the good if you’re successful and not a socialist,” she told the Australian Bush Summit in Perth on Monday.

“Instead just referring to some correspondence when I was very concerned about our family company over a few years.”

Mrs Rinehart was referring to media reports from a Supreme Court trial in Perth that has heard Hancock Prospecting’s executive chair and Mr Hancock had a “major rift” in the years before he died.

A lawyer for Lang Hancock’s children, John Hancock and Bianca Rinehart, said it was partly triggered by Mrs Rinehart’s alleged repeated abuse of the late prospector’s wife Rose Porteous after the pair married in 1985.

Her alleged actions included contacting the immigration department in a bid to have her stepmother deported to the Philippines and calling her an “oriental concubine” and prostitute.

Mrs Rinehart also allegedly took her mother’s will to the US to hold up probate amid fears her father would leave Mrs Porteous mining assets in his will.

The West Australian of the Year 2023 has been accused of “egregious fraud” over her conduct towards mining assets allegedly left to her children by Lang Hancock.

Mrs Rinehart didn’t mention the accusations during her key-note speech to delegates, instead saying she admired her father for “his moral and courageous stand in his final weeks” before he died.