Trove of telexes and letters shapes the battle for Rinehart billions
The first two weeks of the long-awaited court showdown between the billionaire descendants of Australian mining pioneers would have been tough to watch for the country’s richest person, Gina Rinehart.
Troves of documents traversing decades of history were exhumed by Mrs Rinehart’s opponents, providing the court, and the media, new access to deeply private conversations between her children in a bitter family dispute, as well as letters from her late father and Pilbara icon, Lang Hancock.
The legal teams of Wright Prospecting and DFD Rhodes – both gunning for a share of royalties from Hancock Prospecting’s Hope Downs mines in the Hamersley Range – each presented evidence and versions of events that even challenged Hancock’s place in WA mining history.
Emails between Gina Rinehart’s son, John Hancock, and her daughter Bianca have been a tantalising sideline in court.
Lang Hancock had exaggerated his role in the development of the state’s mining industry and downplayed the contribution of his associates, Rhodes’ lawyers alleged.
His business partner, Peter Wright, did his fair share of work in developing the foundations of what would become a multibillion-dollar mining empire, the court heard, and his family deserved an equal share of what it produced.
Lumped in as co-defendants to the Wright claim are two of Mrs Rinehart’s children, John Hancock and Bianca Rinehart. Correspondence between them has offered a colourful sideshow in the first few weeks of the trial, as emails reveal years of disquiet over a family trust.
John called Bianca “weak”, and Bianca once forwarded a plan by her brother to mount a legal challenge against their mother to Mrs Rinehart herself, calling him an “idiot” in the message.
Hancock’s legal team
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