AI
Monday, September 10, 2012 6:26:36 AM
F6 - Yeah. LOL, have read more just now on the Rineheart richest Australian than in the past 10 years. Truly.
She has caused the spending of millions in the dispute with her children, at least some lawyers and paralegals
love her. Chuckle, since we (i anyway) are (am) here was wondering if they have settled their legal fight yet.
Ok, ooi, finally found they haven't settled. These picked up on the way if anyone
is totally free, and into a tad on one of the world's richest woman. Oops, she is.
Lively child's play turns ugly for Gina Rinehart
by: Jennifer Sexton - From: PerthNow - May 06, 2012 12:01AM
Gina Rinehart and her daughter Bianca. Picture: Frances Andrijich/Headpress
THE riverfront gardens surrounding Gina Rinehart's $25 million mansion were once alive with the play and squabble of her four children.
Rinehart's second child, Bianca, remembers their mother gave them a lesson most rich kids skipped.
``For the Royal Show, we used to want to have money to buy showbags. Our house was quite big and there was quite a large garden at the front,'' Bianca said in a rare interview in 2005.
``We got $6 an hour picking weeds.'' Bianca recalled her mother's catchcry: `And make sure you get the roots and all!''
Now, as 34-year-old Bianca and two of her three siblings line up in court against their mother in a bitter battle for control of a family trust - potentially worth as much as $1 billion to each of the children - the matriarch must be wondering where the lesson went wrong.
Rinehart last month lost her second round in the court battle against Bianca, elder brother John Hancock, 36, and younger sister Hope Rinehart Welker, 27, when the Court of Appeal ordered the siblings' case against their mother go ahead in the Supreme Court. The children claim that in secretly delaying by 57 years the date they would get their trust funds, Rinehart's conduct was ``deceptive, manipulative, hopelessly conflicted and disgraceful''.
Rinehart's round-one loss came in March when suppression orders were lifted. The court documents later made public exposed the depths of acrimony that run through the nation's richest family. Personal emails from Rinehart to her children show she has little faith they can be trusted with the money. She dismisses their privileged lifestyles and suggests they should get jobs.
Many parents of the trust-fund generation would feel a great sympathy for Rinehart. As Bianca said in that 2005 interview: ``Like they say, the first generation makes it and the second generation spends it… and then it's gone in the third generation. And that's not my intention at all.''
But the prevailing view of those who know or have known Rinehart is shock and sadness that she would risk the relationship with her children, and grandchildren, over money. And if her children cannot be trusted with the money and are not well equipped to run the empire, then who is to blame?
What kind of life did they have when they were growing up? What values did their mother instil in them? What lesson is she teaching them now, choosing to fight them for the money they claim is theirs?
One former associate asks: ``She has extraordinary wealth. But is she really happy?''
``I was not brought up thinking I was from a privileged family - there's no red carpet,'' John Hancock told author Debi Marshall in a book on Rinehart, The House of Hancock, published last week.
John and Bianca are Rinehart's two older children to former husband Greg Milton, whom she married at 19. When John was an infant Rinehart kept a group of reporters waiting while she breastfed. When asked to explain the delay she said of course she would feed her son first.
``What else would a nursing mother do?''
``She had very good and strong mothering instincts. She was actually pretty hands-on as a mother,'' the former associate said.
At the time the iron ore that Rinehart's father, Lang Hancock, had discovered in the remote north of WA was earning the family $3.5 million a year. Rinehart was Hancock's only child and she had already taken her place in the family company.
John was just 14 days old when Rinehart went back to work.
``Goodness,'' Rinehart told the Women's Weekly in 1976, ``I've got to pick up a whole fortnight's work. If I'm an unfrustrated person, then I'm an unworried mother.''
Englishman Milton grew up on a sheep farm and never knew the kind of privilege and money Rinehart had. The marriage ended when John and Bianca were four and three years old. Milton moved into a small flat and got a job as a truck driver hauling meat carcasses. It was far removed from Rinehart's Dalkeith mansion, with its maids and nannies.
Each week after the separation, Milton saw his children for a short visit. ``We were given a blanket to sit on in the garage or the garden at Gina's home,'' Milton told Marshall, who previously wrote Lang Hancock's biography. ``I felt really degraded to be seeing them under those circumstances. It was emotionally a very painful time for the children and for me, but to save fighting in front of them it was a better option just to go along with it.''
He soon decided Rinehart's enormous wealth was in conflict with his own meagre circumstances, and he cut all ties. ``I thought it would be too confusing for them to see the way I lived.'' They divorced in 1981 and it would be 20 years before Milton would see his children again.
John told Marshall he had been close to his mother. ``I remember helping choose dresses for my mother in Milan when I was seven. We were especially close until about that age, but she was careful not to over-mother me and she consciously began to toughen me. She didn't tell me she loved me. I don't think either of us needed to say it. But she always expected me to succeed.''
Marshall told The Sunday Times: ``I think he really missed that warm motherly touch.'' When they met, John told Marshall that he had chosen the colours and decor of two apartments Rinehart had bought for them in Perth's Crawley _ midnight-blue ceilings and vibrant red walls. ``I wanted the same red as the nail polish I helped my mum choose years ago,'' he said. ``I don't think there's anything wrong with having a `feminine side'; it comes from growing up around women.''
John was in no doubt about who was the boss. ``There is only one chief in the tribe and that is Mum. She is definitely the toughest person I know. She's built of steel. She's never given me handouts and always tried to teach me the importance of hard work and determination. I had a very strict upbringing; lots of chores and no pocket money. She didn't want spoilt brats.''
When he was at university he asked her for money to buy food. ``She said to me, `Have you got any tomato sauce in the cupboard? Then make soup!'''
Rinehart's second marriage, to 57-year-old American corporate lawyer Frank Rinehart, produced two children, Hope and Ginia. Ginia is the only child to take her mother's side in the trust dispute. The girls were five and four respectively when their father died in 1990.
Despite the chores and discipline, growing up a Rinehart meant access to all the advantage and privilege money can buy. John was a three-month-old baby when Rinehart first took him on the family's private jet. Holidays have been taken in Versace's resort in Italy and in Rinehart's penthouse suite on The World, the cruise ship for the super-rich. The children have been able to afford to learn expensive hobbies; in Bianca's case, flying helicopters. The girls attended the same elite Perth school as their mother, St Hilda's in Mosman Park, and later went to the exclusive boarders-only Swiss school Institut le Rosey. At this Geneva school class sizes are limited to 10 and fees start at $100,000. Bianca also attended the famous Massachusetts school Phillips Academy, where former US presidents George Bush Snr and Jnr were educated. She lasted only a year and felt ``like this poor little Australian lost soul''.
John now lives in a home he built in Thailand with funds from Hancock Prospecting. Before settling in Canada with her husband and child, Bianca lived in a home purchased for her in Brisbane. Hope, before moving to her current home in New York, lived in a Mosman home in Sydney's northnte, purchased through a family investment company for $5.4 million.
Marshall said: ``They wanted for nothing. Except a mother's attention.''
Having funded this lifestyle, Rinehart is disdainful of the children for embracing it. Before the court battle, Rinehart told Hope to stop pursuing the funds held in the family trust and instead accept dividend payments that could have continued to ``keep you in expensive homes and an increasingly very privileged lifestyle for life.''
Rinehart has claimed that Hope, who has two children with her mining consultant husband Ryan Welker, ``has never undertaken gainful or long-term employment of any substance'' and John and Bianca have been unemployed for ``the majority of their lives''. Hope has never worked for Hancock Prospecting and she once did a short internship with an art dealer in New York.
John was first to be groomed by Rinehart at Hancock Prospecting but was never handed the kind of responsibility he craved. Mother and son fell out a decade ago and it seems any hope of John returning to a substantial role in the company is lost. ``Stop the nonsense,'' Rinehart said to John in an email last year. ``You are always saying you want a leadership role, but very sadly in the past you have taken the wrong decisions.''
John's terms of employment with Hancock were often tightly controlled by his mother. But if he performed according to the rules, the potential rewards were rivers of gold. Under a 2005 deed revealed in the documents filed in court, John would get a one-off $398,125. If a planned partial float of Hancock prospecting went ahead, he would get a job with the stockbroking firm undertaking the stock market listing. If the float didn't proceed, or the stockbroker didn't hire him, John would get $2 million.
Irrespective of whether he worked for the broker, Hancock Prospecting would pay him $1 million. That deed also gave him access to the Crawley apartment, a Sydney apartment above the Four Seasons Hotel and the penthouse on The World. If he didn't use The World apartment, he would get a one-off payment of $500,000.
But if John thought this was a ticket to party, he was wrong. ``She was down on John like a tonne of bricks for going out too much,'' the former associate said. ``He was doing what any 22-year-old would do and she was certainly disapproving. She wanted the kids to be like she was.''
Bianca, in 2005, said she saw her future working for the family company. Before starting at Hancock Prospecting, she studied Mandarin in Beijing, foreign policy at Harvard University in the US and business at Macquarie University in Sydney.
At Hancock Prospecting she had to do everything from drafting correspondence to taking minutes at meetings so her mother ``knows that it's all sinking in''.
``From what I saw she wanted them to have the same kind of work ethic that she had, which was really a total focus on the mining industry,'' the former associate said.
``For her, mining was not so much a business, but a religion.''
She wanted them to engage in the same way. ``In my observation they weren't doing that in her estimation.''
Rinehart has apparently instead invested in a few key trusted directors of Hancock Prospecting. She recently wrote a poem about right-hand man Tad Watroba that offers a cheesy insight into what she values in people. `He's worked through great difficulties and earned this lady's trust
They say that when he touches steel, it would never rust
He was there at the beginning before the Galilee first awoke
Tad's Corner is a mighty mine, named for a mighty bloke.''
Ginia is the only child who continues to have a role in Hancock Prospecting. She lives in London and her boyfriend is Ryan Johnston, son of the Beach Boys' Bruce Johnston. Ginia replaced Bianca and Hope as director of a number of family companies after the legal action began late last year.
John has publicly mocked Ginia's efforts and the reward of a $1.2 million Rolls-Royce at 25.
Bianca's role as director with Hancock Prospecting ended last October, in the weeks after the children went to court against Rinehart. Bianca and Hope also resigned their positions as directors with the family investment company 150 Investments, which owns the Mosman house that Hope once lived in. To raise funds for the legal stoush, Bianca recently sold an investment property for $500,000 in the Perth suburb of Swan View. Also, in October last year, Hope's husband Ryan Welker left the board of Mineral Resources, in which Rinehart's company Hancock Prospecting has 8.26 per cent stake, forfeiting almost $98,100 in director's fees.
When Hancock Prospecting's Hope Downs mine is in full production, Rinehart will earn $40 million every week. At the remote Alpha coalmine in central Queensland's Galilee Basin last June, Rinehart gave her lunch audience an insight into her priorities. ``For the cost of building this trial mine alone, I could have bought myself a beautiful new private jet.
``But you've seen those trucks and shovels out there. Who would be paying the wages of these contractors if I had spent that on a luxurious private jet and two pilots instead?
``Indeed, for the further costs of paying my terrific staff ... I could have gotten myself one or two beautiful yachts, like many of my friends have. But I am pleased with my choices to invest in Australia, as I know that I have done something important for Australia's future.''
At least for the foreseeable time, that future will not include the
play and squabble, in her front garden, of her own grandchildren.
http://www.perthnow.com.au/business/lively-childs-play-turns-ugly-for-gina-rinehart/story-e6frg2r3-1226347648839
========
Rinehart calls for end to fight
Ian Munro - Date May 11, 2012
Disparaged her children "either do not work, or do not work full-time"
... Gina Rinehart, right, and daughter Ginia. Photo: Ron D'Raine
MINING magnate Gina Rinehart yesterday publicly questioned the need for her children to continue their push to remove her as head of the family's $2.4 billion trust.
But even as she suggested that litigation was no longer necessary, Mrs Rinehart was unable to put down the cudgels, again disparaging her children ''who either do not work, or do not work full-time'' in a statement through her lawyers to newspapers.
Twenty four hours earlier, the NSW Supreme Court heard Mrs Rinehart had brought forward the vesting date of the trust from 2068 to April 30, 2012.
The apparent conciliatory moves continued with Mrs Rinehart surrendering the discretion to apportion the trust proceeds, meaning her four children will receive equal shares of the estimated $2.4 billion trust.
''Accordingly, you have to question any need for the litigation to continue, unless they wish to cause more problems for Mrs Rinehart or Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd for other agendas,'' her lawyers wrote yesterday on Mrs Rinehart's behalf.
The plea for peace followed comments by John Langley Hancock, Bianca Hope Rinehart and Hope Rinehart Welker that they would continue to pursue their mother through the courts. They want her removed as trustee and they also want access to 20 years of financial records.
Yesterday, Mr Hancock said: ''I'm not sure what problems the latest statement refers to.''
In earlier court documents Mrs Rinehart's lawyer, Paul McCann, said Hancock Prospecting's Roy Hill development could be at risk if details of the legal action were made public.
But Mr Hancock said Roy Hill's foreign partners increased support for the project since the suppression order was lifted.
The Hope Margaret Hancock Trust was created in 1988 by Mrs Rinehart's father, Lang Hancock, to benefit his four grandchildren. Three of Mrs Rinehart's children took action last September after she extended the vesting date of the trust to 2068, just days before the trust was to mature.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/rinehart-calls-for-end-to-fight-20120510-1yfpf.html
========
Costs of justice: Another episode in the Rinehart dispute
Bruce Arnold - Lecturer in Law at University of Canberra - 31 July 2012, 2.15pm AEST
The real significance of a decision forcing Gina Rinehart to pay the court costs of both her
children and media outlets is to demonstrate legal independence and the importance of open justice.
In every parent’s life there comes a time when it’s best to hand over the keys to the kids and treat them as adults. That time comes quicker if they haven’t been wrapped in cotton wool or reminded of inadequacies.
People with lots of money seem to be different. Some seek to rule beyond the grave, rule for several generations if they have picked a good trust lawyer and tax minimisation experts. Others seem to just have trouble letting go. On occasion that leads to suspicion, warranted or otherwise, that the parent may not have been a model of perfection.
If you’re poor you sort it out over a barbecue or the state steps in and sorts it out for you. If you are rich you can play out your unhappiness on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald and in “he said, she said” interviews with biographers. That is entertaining for people who will never have the money to buy a private island or two, or need a small army to protect them from kidnappers. It reminds us that money can’t buy happiness, although as a trust lawyer recently reminded me, it buys a better class of misery.
New South Wales Chief Justice Tom Bathurst this week was an actor in the Rinehart Privacy Show, a comedy that has been appearing in courts across Australia to the delight of teams of lawyers and the people who supply them with upmarket cars, cufflinks and other trinkets. Ms Rinehart, if you are one of those busy people who’ve skipped the tabloids, is Australia’s richest person. She’s got a major stake in two media groups and appears to be interested in influencing the direction of three .. https://theconversation.edu.au/why-does-gina-rinehart-want-control-of-fairfax-7774 .. of Australia’s leading newspapers. She’s also, we are told, a deeply private person.
She has expressed that privacy – or merely family unhappiness – through a string of court actions against some of her children and against journalists. Her legal representatives have also apparently sent letters “for information” to academics and others who have written about the disputes. Those letters are standard practice in Australia and overseas but receipt of what is popularly known as a “scarygram” does tend to chill the fainthearted and raise doubts about the resilience of citizen journalism .. https://theconversation.edu.au/when-does-a-blogger-become-a-journalist-4649.
Litigation with the very best lawyers (and paralegals) that money can buy costs money, lots of money. Defending action aimed at suppressing information is a major expense. Chief Justice Bathurst’s judgement in Rinehart v Welker (No 3) [2012] NSWCA 228 ordered .. http://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/action/PJUDG?jgmtid=159880 .. Ms Rinehart to pay the legal bills of three of her four children, who appear to have serious disagreements .. https://theconversation.edu.au/forget-the-personality-sideshow-serious-legal-issues-are-at-the-heart-of-rinehart-family-feud-5813 .. with her about the operation of a family trust.
Those disagreements have not been tested in court. They may indeed never be tested, because a resolution may be reached outside the courthouse in a way that doesn’t substantiate speculation about a breach of trustee duties sufficient to raise questions about the trustee’s fitness. Such speculation may of course be misplaced.
The ABC and other media organisations have sought information about the dispute and the trust arrangements. That reflects media opportunism – there’s nothing like headlines about alleged misbehaviour by the rich and famous. It also reflects a fundamental public interest in the governance of trusts, particularly trusts involving billions of dollars and someone who is a leading citizen. Ms Rinehart has vigorously sought to use the courts to keep information locked up. The media have argued that transparency in judicial proceedings is a fundamental basis of Australian justice; implicitly wealthy corporations and individuals should not have special protection.
That argument has been broadly endorsed by Australia’s highest courts in litigation over disputes involving Ms Rinehart and her peer Solomon Lew. This week’s judgement by Chief Justice Bathurst in the NSW Supreme Court saw Ms Rinehart being ordered to pay the media’s costs.
That decision is useful for executives and journalists in media organisations, given that they have to justify spending and paying several hundred thousand dollars in legal costs is money that could be spent on paying journalists, board members and e-publishing consultants.
The real significance of the decision is that courts are demonstrating both their independence and a recognition of the importance of open justice. The NSW Supreme Court in the Rinehart decision and the Victorian Supreme Court in the Lew decision .. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VSC/2012/153.html .. is founded on acknowledgement of the need for transparency in litigation – rich and poor alike are exposed to the glare of the spotlight or the tedium of barristers arguing legal minutiae – and a distaste for the use of suppression orders or other mechanisms to privatise what is properly public. Courts will appropriately quarantine matters regarding national security or sexual assault but money cannot buy a secret hearing about allegations of serious misconduct. That’s as important as the Finkelstein Review .. https://theconversation.edu.au/self-regulation-and-a-media-we-can-trust-6466.
Gawkers and lawyers alike, along with bodies such as the Australian Taxation Office and Australian Securities Investments Commission, will wait for September when the next act in this comedy is scheduled to appear in court. If Ms Rinehart is passionate about privacy – and about a happy family – she might sensibly deprive us of that enjoyment by settling with the kids.
http://theconversation.edu.au/costs-of-justice-another-episode-in-the-rinehart-dispute-8528
Hmm, reminds me of one. Ok, what the heck .. it's on big, think global from now on, warming so fits a bit .. see also ..
No, MisterEC, money can't buy a rational and reasoned approach to
anything. Money cannot buy honesty, common sense, an open mind,
or even peace of mind. In fact there are many things money cannot buy.
In all sincerity, though with little hope, i suggest you and others
of your ilk on this board have a real good look at this post ..
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78095847
She has caused the spending of millions in the dispute with her children, at least some lawyers and paralegals
love her. Chuckle, since we (i anyway) are (am) here was wondering if they have settled their legal fight yet.
Ok, ooi, finally found they haven't settled. These picked up on the way if anyone
is totally free, and into a tad on one of the world's richest woman. Oops, she is.
Lively child's play turns ugly for Gina Rinehart
by: Jennifer Sexton - From: PerthNow - May 06, 2012 12:01AM
Gina Rinehart and her daughter Bianca. Picture: Frances Andrijich/Headpress
THE riverfront gardens surrounding Gina Rinehart's $25 million mansion were once alive with the play and squabble of her four children.
Rinehart's second child, Bianca, remembers their mother gave them a lesson most rich kids skipped.
``For the Royal Show, we used to want to have money to buy showbags. Our house was quite big and there was quite a large garden at the front,'' Bianca said in a rare interview in 2005.
``We got $6 an hour picking weeds.'' Bianca recalled her mother's catchcry: `And make sure you get the roots and all!''
Now, as 34-year-old Bianca and two of her three siblings line up in court against their mother in a bitter battle for control of a family trust - potentially worth as much as $1 billion to each of the children - the matriarch must be wondering where the lesson went wrong.
Rinehart last month lost her second round in the court battle against Bianca, elder brother John Hancock, 36, and younger sister Hope Rinehart Welker, 27, when the Court of Appeal ordered the siblings' case against their mother go ahead in the Supreme Court. The children claim that in secretly delaying by 57 years the date they would get their trust funds, Rinehart's conduct was ``deceptive, manipulative, hopelessly conflicted and disgraceful''.
Rinehart's round-one loss came in March when suppression orders were lifted. The court documents later made public exposed the depths of acrimony that run through the nation's richest family. Personal emails from Rinehart to her children show she has little faith they can be trusted with the money. She dismisses their privileged lifestyles and suggests they should get jobs.
Many parents of the trust-fund generation would feel a great sympathy for Rinehart. As Bianca said in that 2005 interview: ``Like they say, the first generation makes it and the second generation spends it… and then it's gone in the third generation. And that's not my intention at all.''
But the prevailing view of those who know or have known Rinehart is shock and sadness that she would risk the relationship with her children, and grandchildren, over money. And if her children cannot be trusted with the money and are not well equipped to run the empire, then who is to blame?
What kind of life did they have when they were growing up? What values did their mother instil in them? What lesson is she teaching them now, choosing to fight them for the money they claim is theirs?
One former associate asks: ``She has extraordinary wealth. But is she really happy?''
``I was not brought up thinking I was from a privileged family - there's no red carpet,'' John Hancock told author Debi Marshall in a book on Rinehart, The House of Hancock, published last week.
John and Bianca are Rinehart's two older children to former husband Greg Milton, whom she married at 19. When John was an infant Rinehart kept a group of reporters waiting while she breastfed. When asked to explain the delay she said of course she would feed her son first.
``What else would a nursing mother do?''
``She had very good and strong mothering instincts. She was actually pretty hands-on as a mother,'' the former associate said.
At the time the iron ore that Rinehart's father, Lang Hancock, had discovered in the remote north of WA was earning the family $3.5 million a year. Rinehart was Hancock's only child and she had already taken her place in the family company.
John was just 14 days old when Rinehart went back to work.
``Goodness,'' Rinehart told the Women's Weekly in 1976, ``I've got to pick up a whole fortnight's work. If I'm an unfrustrated person, then I'm an unworried mother.''
Englishman Milton grew up on a sheep farm and never knew the kind of privilege and money Rinehart had. The marriage ended when John and Bianca were four and three years old. Milton moved into a small flat and got a job as a truck driver hauling meat carcasses. It was far removed from Rinehart's Dalkeith mansion, with its maids and nannies.
Each week after the separation, Milton saw his children for a short visit. ``We were given a blanket to sit on in the garage or the garden at Gina's home,'' Milton told Marshall, who previously wrote Lang Hancock's biography. ``I felt really degraded to be seeing them under those circumstances. It was emotionally a very painful time for the children and for me, but to save fighting in front of them it was a better option just to go along with it.''
He soon decided Rinehart's enormous wealth was in conflict with his own meagre circumstances, and he cut all ties. ``I thought it would be too confusing for them to see the way I lived.'' They divorced in 1981 and it would be 20 years before Milton would see his children again.
John told Marshall he had been close to his mother. ``I remember helping choose dresses for my mother in Milan when I was seven. We were especially close until about that age, but she was careful not to over-mother me and she consciously began to toughen me. She didn't tell me she loved me. I don't think either of us needed to say it. But she always expected me to succeed.''
Marshall told The Sunday Times: ``I think he really missed that warm motherly touch.'' When they met, John told Marshall that he had chosen the colours and decor of two apartments Rinehart had bought for them in Perth's Crawley _ midnight-blue ceilings and vibrant red walls. ``I wanted the same red as the nail polish I helped my mum choose years ago,'' he said. ``I don't think there's anything wrong with having a `feminine side'; it comes from growing up around women.''
John was in no doubt about who was the boss. ``There is only one chief in the tribe and that is Mum. She is definitely the toughest person I know. She's built of steel. She's never given me handouts and always tried to teach me the importance of hard work and determination. I had a very strict upbringing; lots of chores and no pocket money. She didn't want spoilt brats.''
When he was at university he asked her for money to buy food. ``She said to me, `Have you got any tomato sauce in the cupboard? Then make soup!'''
Rinehart's second marriage, to 57-year-old American corporate lawyer Frank Rinehart, produced two children, Hope and Ginia. Ginia is the only child to take her mother's side in the trust dispute. The girls were five and four respectively when their father died in 1990.
Despite the chores and discipline, growing up a Rinehart meant access to all the advantage and privilege money can buy. John was a three-month-old baby when Rinehart first took him on the family's private jet. Holidays have been taken in Versace's resort in Italy and in Rinehart's penthouse suite on The World, the cruise ship for the super-rich. The children have been able to afford to learn expensive hobbies; in Bianca's case, flying helicopters. The girls attended the same elite Perth school as their mother, St Hilda's in Mosman Park, and later went to the exclusive boarders-only Swiss school Institut le Rosey. At this Geneva school class sizes are limited to 10 and fees start at $100,000. Bianca also attended the famous Massachusetts school Phillips Academy, where former US presidents George Bush Snr and Jnr were educated. She lasted only a year and felt ``like this poor little Australian lost soul''.
John now lives in a home he built in Thailand with funds from Hancock Prospecting. Before settling in Canada with her husband and child, Bianca lived in a home purchased for her in Brisbane. Hope, before moving to her current home in New York, lived in a Mosman home in Sydney's northnte, purchased through a family investment company for $5.4 million.
Marshall said: ``They wanted for nothing. Except a mother's attention.''
Having funded this lifestyle, Rinehart is disdainful of the children for embracing it. Before the court battle, Rinehart told Hope to stop pursuing the funds held in the family trust and instead accept dividend payments that could have continued to ``keep you in expensive homes and an increasingly very privileged lifestyle for life.''
Rinehart has claimed that Hope, who has two children with her mining consultant husband Ryan Welker, ``has never undertaken gainful or long-term employment of any substance'' and John and Bianca have been unemployed for ``the majority of their lives''. Hope has never worked for Hancock Prospecting and she once did a short internship with an art dealer in New York.
John was first to be groomed by Rinehart at Hancock Prospecting but was never handed the kind of responsibility he craved. Mother and son fell out a decade ago and it seems any hope of John returning to a substantial role in the company is lost. ``Stop the nonsense,'' Rinehart said to John in an email last year. ``You are always saying you want a leadership role, but very sadly in the past you have taken the wrong decisions.''
John's terms of employment with Hancock were often tightly controlled by his mother. But if he performed according to the rules, the potential rewards were rivers of gold. Under a 2005 deed revealed in the documents filed in court, John would get a one-off $398,125. If a planned partial float of Hancock prospecting went ahead, he would get a job with the stockbroking firm undertaking the stock market listing. If the float didn't proceed, or the stockbroker didn't hire him, John would get $2 million.
Irrespective of whether he worked for the broker, Hancock Prospecting would pay him $1 million. That deed also gave him access to the Crawley apartment, a Sydney apartment above the Four Seasons Hotel and the penthouse on The World. If he didn't use The World apartment, he would get a one-off payment of $500,000.
But if John thought this was a ticket to party, he was wrong. ``She was down on John like a tonne of bricks for going out too much,'' the former associate said. ``He was doing what any 22-year-old would do and she was certainly disapproving. She wanted the kids to be like she was.''
Bianca, in 2005, said she saw her future working for the family company. Before starting at Hancock Prospecting, she studied Mandarin in Beijing, foreign policy at Harvard University in the US and business at Macquarie University in Sydney.
At Hancock Prospecting she had to do everything from drafting correspondence to taking minutes at meetings so her mother ``knows that it's all sinking in''.
``From what I saw she wanted them to have the same kind of work ethic that she had, which was really a total focus on the mining industry,'' the former associate said.
``For her, mining was not so much a business, but a religion.''
She wanted them to engage in the same way. ``In my observation they weren't doing that in her estimation.''
Rinehart has apparently instead invested in a few key trusted directors of Hancock Prospecting. She recently wrote a poem about right-hand man Tad Watroba that offers a cheesy insight into what she values in people. `He's worked through great difficulties and earned this lady's trust
They say that when he touches steel, it would never rust
He was there at the beginning before the Galilee first awoke
Tad's Corner is a mighty mine, named for a mighty bloke.''
Ginia is the only child who continues to have a role in Hancock Prospecting. She lives in London and her boyfriend is Ryan Johnston, son of the Beach Boys' Bruce Johnston. Ginia replaced Bianca and Hope as director of a number of family companies after the legal action began late last year.
John has publicly mocked Ginia's efforts and the reward of a $1.2 million Rolls-Royce at 25.
Bianca's role as director with Hancock Prospecting ended last October, in the weeks after the children went to court against Rinehart. Bianca and Hope also resigned their positions as directors with the family investment company 150 Investments, which owns the Mosman house that Hope once lived in. To raise funds for the legal stoush, Bianca recently sold an investment property for $500,000 in the Perth suburb of Swan View. Also, in October last year, Hope's husband Ryan Welker left the board of Mineral Resources, in which Rinehart's company Hancock Prospecting has 8.26 per cent stake, forfeiting almost $98,100 in director's fees.
When Hancock Prospecting's Hope Downs mine is in full production, Rinehart will earn $40 million every week. At the remote Alpha coalmine in central Queensland's Galilee Basin last June, Rinehart gave her lunch audience an insight into her priorities. ``For the cost of building this trial mine alone, I could have bought myself a beautiful new private jet.
``But you've seen those trucks and shovels out there. Who would be paying the wages of these contractors if I had spent that on a luxurious private jet and two pilots instead?
``Indeed, for the further costs of paying my terrific staff ... I could have gotten myself one or two beautiful yachts, like many of my friends have. But I am pleased with my choices to invest in Australia, as I know that I have done something important for Australia's future.''
At least for the foreseeable time, that future will not include the
play and squabble, in her front garden, of her own grandchildren.
http://www.perthnow.com.au/business/lively-childs-play-turns-ugly-for-gina-rinehart/story-e6frg2r3-1226347648839
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Rinehart calls for end to fight
Ian Munro - Date May 11, 2012
Disparaged her children "either do not work, or do not work full-time"
... Gina Rinehart, right, and daughter Ginia. Photo: Ron D'Raine
MINING magnate Gina Rinehart yesterday publicly questioned the need for her children to continue their push to remove her as head of the family's $2.4 billion trust.
But even as she suggested that litigation was no longer necessary, Mrs Rinehart was unable to put down the cudgels, again disparaging her children ''who either do not work, or do not work full-time'' in a statement through her lawyers to newspapers.
Twenty four hours earlier, the NSW Supreme Court heard Mrs Rinehart had brought forward the vesting date of the trust from 2068 to April 30, 2012.
The apparent conciliatory moves continued with Mrs Rinehart surrendering the discretion to apportion the trust proceeds, meaning her four children will receive equal shares of the estimated $2.4 billion trust.
''Accordingly, you have to question any need for the litigation to continue, unless they wish to cause more problems for Mrs Rinehart or Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd for other agendas,'' her lawyers wrote yesterday on Mrs Rinehart's behalf.
The plea for peace followed comments by John Langley Hancock, Bianca Hope Rinehart and Hope Rinehart Welker that they would continue to pursue their mother through the courts. They want her removed as trustee and they also want access to 20 years of financial records.
Yesterday, Mr Hancock said: ''I'm not sure what problems the latest statement refers to.''
In earlier court documents Mrs Rinehart's lawyer, Paul McCann, said Hancock Prospecting's Roy Hill development could be at risk if details of the legal action were made public.
But Mr Hancock said Roy Hill's foreign partners increased support for the project since the suppression order was lifted.
The Hope Margaret Hancock Trust was created in 1988 by Mrs Rinehart's father, Lang Hancock, to benefit his four grandchildren. Three of Mrs Rinehart's children took action last September after she extended the vesting date of the trust to 2068, just days before the trust was to mature.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/rinehart-calls-for-end-to-fight-20120510-1yfpf.html
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Costs of justice: Another episode in the Rinehart dispute
Bruce Arnold - Lecturer in Law at University of Canberra - 31 July 2012, 2.15pm AEST
The real significance of a decision forcing Gina Rinehart to pay the court costs of both her
children and media outlets is to demonstrate legal independence and the importance of open justice.
In every parent’s life there comes a time when it’s best to hand over the keys to the kids and treat them as adults. That time comes quicker if they haven’t been wrapped in cotton wool or reminded of inadequacies.
People with lots of money seem to be different. Some seek to rule beyond the grave, rule for several generations if they have picked a good trust lawyer and tax minimisation experts. Others seem to just have trouble letting go. On occasion that leads to suspicion, warranted or otherwise, that the parent may not have been a model of perfection.
If you’re poor you sort it out over a barbecue or the state steps in and sorts it out for you. If you are rich you can play out your unhappiness on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald and in “he said, she said” interviews with biographers. That is entertaining for people who will never have the money to buy a private island or two, or need a small army to protect them from kidnappers. It reminds us that money can’t buy happiness, although as a trust lawyer recently reminded me, it buys a better class of misery.
New South Wales Chief Justice Tom Bathurst this week was an actor in the Rinehart Privacy Show, a comedy that has been appearing in courts across Australia to the delight of teams of lawyers and the people who supply them with upmarket cars, cufflinks and other trinkets. Ms Rinehart, if you are one of those busy people who’ve skipped the tabloids, is Australia’s richest person. She’s got a major stake in two media groups and appears to be interested in influencing the direction of three .. https://theconversation.edu.au/why-does-gina-rinehart-want-control-of-fairfax-7774 .. of Australia’s leading newspapers. She’s also, we are told, a deeply private person.
She has expressed that privacy – or merely family unhappiness – through a string of court actions against some of her children and against journalists. Her legal representatives have also apparently sent letters “for information” to academics and others who have written about the disputes. Those letters are standard practice in Australia and overseas but receipt of what is popularly known as a “scarygram” does tend to chill the fainthearted and raise doubts about the resilience of citizen journalism .. https://theconversation.edu.au/when-does-a-blogger-become-a-journalist-4649.
Litigation with the very best lawyers (and paralegals) that money can buy costs money, lots of money. Defending action aimed at suppressing information is a major expense. Chief Justice Bathurst’s judgement in Rinehart v Welker (No 3) [2012] NSWCA 228 ordered .. http://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/action/PJUDG?jgmtid=159880 .. Ms Rinehart to pay the legal bills of three of her four children, who appear to have serious disagreements .. https://theconversation.edu.au/forget-the-personality-sideshow-serious-legal-issues-are-at-the-heart-of-rinehart-family-feud-5813 .. with her about the operation of a family trust.
Those disagreements have not been tested in court. They may indeed never be tested, because a resolution may be reached outside the courthouse in a way that doesn’t substantiate speculation about a breach of trustee duties sufficient to raise questions about the trustee’s fitness. Such speculation may of course be misplaced.
The ABC and other media organisations have sought information about the dispute and the trust arrangements. That reflects media opportunism – there’s nothing like headlines about alleged misbehaviour by the rich and famous. It also reflects a fundamental public interest in the governance of trusts, particularly trusts involving billions of dollars and someone who is a leading citizen. Ms Rinehart has vigorously sought to use the courts to keep information locked up. The media have argued that transparency in judicial proceedings is a fundamental basis of Australian justice; implicitly wealthy corporations and individuals should not have special protection.
That argument has been broadly endorsed by Australia’s highest courts in litigation over disputes involving Ms Rinehart and her peer Solomon Lew. This week’s judgement by Chief Justice Bathurst in the NSW Supreme Court saw Ms Rinehart being ordered to pay the media’s costs.
That decision is useful for executives and journalists in media organisations, given that they have to justify spending and paying several hundred thousand dollars in legal costs is money that could be spent on paying journalists, board members and e-publishing consultants.
The real significance of the decision is that courts are demonstrating both their independence and a recognition of the importance of open justice. The NSW Supreme Court in the Rinehart decision and the Victorian Supreme Court in the Lew decision .. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VSC/2012/153.html .. is founded on acknowledgement of the need for transparency in litigation – rich and poor alike are exposed to the glare of the spotlight or the tedium of barristers arguing legal minutiae – and a distaste for the use of suppression orders or other mechanisms to privatise what is properly public. Courts will appropriately quarantine matters regarding national security or sexual assault but money cannot buy a secret hearing about allegations of serious misconduct. That’s as important as the Finkelstein Review .. https://theconversation.edu.au/self-regulation-and-a-media-we-can-trust-6466.
Gawkers and lawyers alike, along with bodies such as the Australian Taxation Office and Australian Securities Investments Commission, will wait for September when the next act in this comedy is scheduled to appear in court. If Ms Rinehart is passionate about privacy – and about a happy family – she might sensibly deprive us of that enjoyment by settling with the kids.
http://theconversation.edu.au/costs-of-justice-another-episode-in-the-rinehart-dispute-8528
Hmm, reminds me of one. Ok, what the heck .. it's on big, think global from now on, warming so fits a bit .. see also ..
No, MisterEC, money can't buy a rational and reasoned approach to
anything. Money cannot buy honesty, common sense, an open mind,
or even peace of mind. In fact there are many things money cannot buy.
In all sincerity, though with little hope, i suggest you and others
of your ilk on this board have a real good look at this post ..
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=78095847
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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