Anyone who has siblings knows that from time to time they can play cruel jokes on you. This is especially true when, like me, you happen to be the youngest in a relatively large family. Typically though as everyone grows up, moves away from home and starts families of their own, the motivation and opportunity for playing these jokes declines.
However, the urge never goes away entirely as I found out last Christmas when I opened my brother's present to find out it was nothing other than a biography of Gina Rinehart. As I have never held back on my thoughts about the world's richest woman, I accepted the familial attempt at humour for what it was but given my feelings regarding its subject, let the book sit untouched on my bookcase for the next 6 months. However, eventually a morbid sense of curiosity took hold of me, not dissimilar to the feeling people get when they drive past a car crash and feel compelled to slow down to take a look. Hence a month or so a go, I went into the study, retrieved the weighty tome (no pun intended) and began to read.
I was pleased I did because the book turned out to be eminently readable and despite the obvious challenges one would face getting accurate information about the private and notoriously litigious Rinehart, particularly well-researched. As well as applying her considerable journalistic skill to the work, in the course of her writing Adele Ferguson clearly managed to win the confidence of a number of Rinehart's family and business associates. As a result she has produced a work which while uncompromising about its subject, is very matter of fact in its telling to the point where even when she recounts some of the more extraordinary anecdotes, it is impossible to discern what her own views as an author are. Given the polarising nature of her subject, this cannot have been easy and Ferguson is to be commended for being as impartial as possible and letting the reader make up their own mind.
Which I did. And it's fair to say it didn't change my mind. Assuming most of what Ferguson recounted in the book is true, Rinehart would have to be one of the most selfish, unbalanced and vindictive people in public life in Australia today, not to mention one of the most dangerous given the sway she clearly has with our new Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Let me recount a few vignettes from the book to explain why.
First and foremost, in many respects Gina is a chip off the old block of her father, the late Lang Hancock. For most of Gina's life, her mother Hope battled with cancer and as a result, much of her childhood was spent in her father's care travelling to business engagements both in Australia and abroad. Like his daughter, Lang held some extreme views on a wide range of topics. These included dismissing entirely the harmful effects of asbestos (he once famously sprinkled asbestos on his Weet-Bix and ate it to prove his point); proposing that miners in the Pilbara be allowed to detonate atomic bombs as a means of extracting minerals more efficiently; and wanting to eradicate half-caste aboriginals by poisoning their water holes. This last one despite the fact that Lang sired an illegitimate half-caste aboriginal child himself - a half-sister that to this day, Gina refuses to acknowledge.
Despite his often crackpot and highly offensive views, as a businessman Lang clearly had a level of trust and integrity. Often his business relationships were consummated and operated based on nothing more substantial than a handshake, most notably his prospecting partnership with Peter Wright which was the prime generator of the Hancock fortune.
Gina, on the other hand, clearly trusts no-one, is highly litigious and anyone who gets in her way is fair game. She may have many faults, but at last you can't accuse her of being devious. Her attitude to business and life is unapologetically: "I want to control everything, make as much money by whatever means possible, and stuff anyone and everything else." Well, she has certainly succeeded as far as the money side is concerned, but the human cost and other collateral damage Rinehart has caused in the pursuit of her objective is simply staggering.
Gina's mistrust and foul treatment of others didn't take long to manifest itself. Her first marriage to Englishman Greg Milton produced 2 children but didn't take long after that to founder. As part of the divorce settlement, Milton was given $60,000 but in exchange, had to agree to have no contact whatsoever with his children - an incredibly harsh condition for any parent to agree to but one he felt he had no choice but to accept.
Her next marriage was to an American lawyer 37 years her senior, Frank Rinehart. Rinehart by all accounts was a nasty piece of work. He possessed a foul temper, was often cruel to his step-children and was a convicted felon and tax cheat back in the USA. Lang Hancock was understandably appalled by the union which led to a falling out between father and daughter. Despite all this, Gina put Frank Rinehart on a pedestal and had 2 further children with him.
When Frank Rinehart died suddenly in 1990, Gina found out that long before he met her, Frank had an illicit relationship with a New York woman during the course of his first marriage and had bought her an apartment in Manhattan to provide for her. Unfortunately for the woman concerned, Frank had never physically transferred the title to her so despite the value of the apartment being chump change to Gina, she decided to take legal action to reclaim possession the apartment. Not for the last time, her litigation would end in failure but not after causing untold stress and cost to someone who clearly didn't deserve it.
This "stuff you" attitude to everyone other than herself has percolated right through her professional and business life and destroyed countless relationships. Apart from the conga line of mining executives that have been through Hancock Prospecting and found her impossible to work with, Gina also has a poisonous relationship with her father's former business partners the Wrights, pursued her stepmother Rose Porteous relentlessly through the courts for years and most sadly, is estranged from and is engaged in legal action with 3 of her 4 children. The most idiotic thing about her numerous law suits is that they are almost always based on flimsy legal grounds and invariably result in failure, to the point where the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of WA took the unusual step of publicly criticising both her and Porteous for not being able to resolve their squabbling amicably and chewing up valuable court time and resources in doing so.
Rinehart's adversarial relationship with her family and business associates carries over into her attitude to the government - primarily because it seeks to impose regulatory controls over her business activities and wants her to pay a fair share of tax. Apart from having contempt for any form of taxation and environmental regulation, Rinehart has lobbied long and hard for cheap, foreign workers to be brought in from offshore so that she can avoid having to use local, unionised labour who might be able to demand fairer wages - and therefore reduce her obscene profits. However, her reluctance to pay tax or accept any form of government control over her projects (which might, for instance, stop her from using atomic bombs as mine explosives) hasn't stopped her from complaining endlessly about the government not building her train lines and other infrastructure in the Pilbara to enable her to get iron ore offshore more efficiently and make her more money. The fact that a government can't build things without raising tax is entirely lost on her.
Apart from all of this, Rinehart thinks and does a lot of other things that would be anathema to anyone with moderate or progressive views, such as supporting climate change denialists, wanting Western Australia to secede from the Commonwealth and become its own monarchy and failing to give more than a tiny fraction of her vast wealth to charity. However, ultimately it is her prerogative to think what she wants, just as is it is her prerogative to continue accumulating a huge piles of cash. So in this vein, why bother to get all worked up about what she does?
The answer is simple. With the huge rivers of cash flowing into her coffers, Rinehart now has the financial wherewithal to take her obsession with controlling everything around her to a whole new level. This has extended recently to controlling what is said about her in the media, where she has bought significant stakes in both Network 10 and John Fairfax, which publishes two of the major daily papers in Australia. Her influence over what gets put on Channel 10 is patently clear - how else would someone as comprehensively godawful as Andrew Bolt get his own TV show? The board of Fairfax, justifiably concerned that Rinehart would try and influence editorial direction in a similar manner, baulked at giving her seats on the board.
As a result, the prospect of seeing Lord Monckton on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald may have receded for now, but with $30 billion to play with, you have to wonder what Rinehart will try to pull next, especially now has a very sympathetic ear in the Lodge. Already we are starting to see Abbott float publicly some of Rinehart's ideas, like a separate tax zone for the Pilbara and importation of cheap offshore labour.
Of course, its not a crime nor necessarily undesirable for business people to be involved in the public debate, nor to make policy suggestions to government about how best to help the economy along. However, given that she has the altruism and empathy levels of your average cat, you have to question whether its in any of our interest to have people like Gina Rinehart involved in running our media or influencing the government. By her words and actions she has made it abundantly clear that she is only interested in looking number 1, and doesn't give a tinker's cuss about what happens to the country that made her into the kazillionaire she is today.
So, Mr Abbott, a word of warning. This woman has already devoured the Pilbara, countless mining executives and most of her own family. Given half a chance she will make short work of you, too. I suggest you therefore be very careful which bedfellows you choose while in office or you could wind up looking like a bigger goose than both your 2 predecessors.
