Iron Will: Australia’s Richest Person Counts the Cost as Court Orders She Share Mining Millions with Rival Family

THE GUARDIAN: Gina Rinehart, who’s been called Australia’s ‘female Donald Trump’, has long fought claims from the family of her father’s business partner – as well as her own children

Screenshot taken from this Guardian article. | Mining billionaire Gina Rinehart has political connections in the Trump White House and Australia’s parliament. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
Australia’s richest person is reeling after a landmark court decision found her company must pay royalties worth hundreds of millions of dollars to a rival mining dynasty.

Gina Rinehart, a multibillionaire with political connections in both the White House and the Australian parliament, has been described by members of the US conservative movement as “a female Donald Trump”. The 72-year-old, who inherited her father’s iron ore empire in Australia’s Pilbara region, has fought multiple claims against the family company Hancock Prospecting that were first launched in 2010.

On Wednesday, in the Western Australian supreme court, Justice Jennifer Smith found that Wright Prospecting was entitled to its claim for a half share of royalties coming from one of the region’s largest projects – Hope Downs.

Hope Downs is a joint venture between Rio Tinto and Hancock Prospecting and exports about 45m tonnes of iron ore annually from Australia’s north-west each year.

But Hancock Prospecting had a partial victory, with the court rejecting Wright Prospecting’s claim for an equity stake in other mining assets.

The dispute harks back to a business partnership struck in the 1950s by mining prospectors Lang Hancock and Peter Wright. The pair had been school friends and together established a company called Hanwright which was responsible for pegging out vast tenements of iron ore-rich deposits in the region’s Hamersley Range. » | Sarah Martin | Saturday, April 18, 2026

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