Does Gina Rinehart have Aboriginal half-sisters? New documents shed light

The Guardian

27-04-2025

At Gina Rinehart's childhood home of Mulga Downs, only relics remain of the working homestead that is at the heart of the Hancock family's foundation story. Cattle and sheep pens sit abandoned as rust and weeds slowly take over the station's old outbuildings.
The vast outback property – almost a million acres in size – is talked about nostalgically by Australia's richest person. It was here that she roamed free as a child, climbing windmills to help her father, Lang Hancock, on the farm, and sweeping the Pilbara's ubiquitous red dust from the kitchen floor.
According to Hancock, she had just kangaroos and lizards for company.
But the story of Mulga Downs told by the family rarely – if ever – mentions the Indigenous workforce who helped keep the station running through much of the 19th and 20th centuries.
And now previously unreported documents, uncovered by Guardian Australia for the podcast series Gina, offer an insight into Hancock's relationship with two children who were removed from the station under government policies that created the Stolen Generations. They lend weight to claims that Rinehart has Aboriginal half-sisters.
Hancock, who is known for his racist comments about Aboriginal people, including that he believed some should be forcibly sterilised, denied claims that he fathered two daughters to Aboriginal women who lived and worked at Mulga Downs while he was a young man.
He claimed Rinehart was his only child. At the time of his death, she inherited Hancock Prospecting and an estate worth an estimated $75m.
But government documents obtained from the State Records Office of Western Australia reveal that Hancock sought ministerial intervention when two Aboriginal children, including one of the girls Hancock is alleged to have fathered, were removed from the station while he was its manager. In a letter to the state government, he pleaded for 'the two children [to] be returned to us'. The letter doesn't contain direct evidence that he was the girl's father.
The trove of documents also reveals government concerns about sexual relationships between white men and Aboriginal women at Mulga Downs in the early 20th century and into the 1940s. Under section 46 of the state's Native Administration Act, it was illegal for a 'non-native' to have 'sexual intercourse with any native who is not his wife or her husband'.
One government report claimed there was an 'unsatisfactory state of native matters at Mulga Downs Station'. Another reported that conditions were 'very bad indeed', with sexual intercourse between white station employees and Aboriginal women 'going on nearly every night'.
Correspondence between the state's commissioner of native affairs and police also shows that authorities questioned conditions at the station and at one point threatened to reconsider Hancock's suitability to hold a permit to employ Indigenous workers if he did not help them to suppress 'illicit intercourse'.
Hancock lived at Mulga Downs as a young man and took over management of the station in 1935 when he was 26.
The documents outline details of a number of children who were alleged to have been fathered by white men who were forcibly removed by the government from the station – with reports of child removal going back to the 1920s.
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One of these children, Sella, who was reportedly born under a mulga tree at the station in 1932, subsequently claimed that she was Hancock's first-born daughter.
She made the claim in the Perth Sunday Times, saying she wanted recognition.
Another woman, Hilda Kickett, also claimed in 1992 to be Hancock's daughter, an assertion supported by her family and Barry Hickey, who later became the Catholic archbishop of Perth. Kickett had been born in Port Hedland and removed to an orphanage in Perth. She tried to visit Hancock on his deathbed but said she was denied. Hilda also shares Rinehart's first name – she was christened Georgina. She died in 2020 but her son, Kelvin Kickett, spoke to the Gina podcast.
Hancock's lawyer, Alan Camp, issued a statement in response denying Hancock's paternity of the women, saying 'it was not Lang's style'.
'That wasn't the kind of thing Lang Hancock would do,' he said. 'I have spoken to young men who worked around Mulga Downs with Lang and I have spoken to confidants who say nothing like this was ever mentioned or rumored.'
Kickett's claim was reportedly recognised by Hancock's second wife, Rose Porteous, who told journalists after Lang's death in 1992 that Kickett was his daughter, and the mining tycoon had confirmed this to her before he died.
Now a previously unreported letter, uncovered by the Guardian, reveals that Hancock sought ministerial intervention after Sella was removed by authorities from Mulga Downs with another Aboriginal girl called Minit. Hancock said authorities had 'kidnapped' the children, who were aged six and eight.
Sella also alleged that Minit was a Hancock child – the daughter of Lang's father, George.
'In the absence of the manager of this station the local police officer and Inspector … ran down and captured two half-caste children who were decently clothed and fed, and cruelly took them from their mothers, to be a burden on the State, despite the fact that they and their parents were fed, clothed and insured by us,' Hancock wrote in the October 1940 letter to the state's minister for the north-west. 'No letter of explanation was left or forwarded.
'Twenty-four miles from us there are nine starving ill clothed half-caste and quadroon children of whom both the Inspector and the police have been notified; but nothing has been done about them.'
Hancock criticised the government for the resources used to remove the children, saying it had spent money to 'burn up petrol to travel four hundred miles to collect two well fed children, leaving nine others who are starving, as well as two half-caste children on a neighbouring station'.
'No dogs were shot or rifles collected here, so that the trip cannot be described as anything but a wanton waste of taxpayers money, which we think would be better spent by the police in rounding up thieves who broke into one of our outcamps.
'It appears that essential work is neglected in favour of heaping misery upon defenceless children.'
Hancock also requested that the children be returned and other Aboriginal children take their place.
'We would suggest that the two children be returned to us and two of the starving mites substituted, as there is no justification for wasting money and inflicting cruelty upon them, especially when every penny should be spent in keeping Hitler from the door,' he wrote.
The minister, Aubrey Coverley, replied three weeks later to justify the girls' removal.
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'The two children referred to are female quadroons or half-castes,' he wrote. 'They are aged six and eight years, respectively, and they are the children of coloured mothers by white men. Such children are always removed to institutions and the fathers are compelled to pay maintenance if the necessary evidence is available.
'If the children were half-castes of half-caste parents they would not be removed except if they were orphans or in destitute circumstances. However, these particular children are the offspring of coloured mothers and white fathers. Their proper place is in an institution for education and training to a better life. It is due to them that they should have their opportunities in life.
'These two children are females; moreover, they are either quadroons or half-castes. If they were left in the bush they would get into trouble and provide us with problems in the future, in that they would almost certainly meet white men and have children by them, resulting in almost white children of native habits and inclinations.'
The local protector of native affairs based in Roebourne, Stan Wightman, also justified the children's removal in a letter to the state's commissioner of native affairs.
'I am forced to the opinion that if Hancock considers that the fact of working two half-caste native females aged 12 and 9 [sic] respectively at the homestead during the day and sending them into the native camp to sleep … is fair and proper treatment for these children, well then his sense of fairness is somewhat warped.'
The government correspondence shows repeated mention of sexual relations between white men and Aboriginal women in the camps, saying the women 'must have been used by white men for the satisfaction of their sexual desires'.
The circumstances of the children's removal is also revealed in official correspondence, with Wightman reporting to the commissioner how the two children were captured.
Sella was found after Wightman and another government inspector pulled over a Chevrolet truck to question two station workers.
'These men … appeared to be somewhat agitated,' he wrote. 'I noticed that a tarpaulin, which was covered over [a] portion of the table top was moving. I … removed the tarpaulin thus uncovering 2 native adult females and the half-caste child.'
The girl was placed in the police car. At the time of her removal, her mother was reportedly at Roebourne hospital.
Minit was chased before she was captured, a separate police report reveals.
'When about 30 or so yards from the camp the girl appeared from out of a bush shelter and rushed away into the bush,' it says. 'After a chase of 100 yards or so [she] was captured.'
The inspector, CM McBeath, complained about the 'audacity' of Hancock suggesting that the children be returned in a letter to the native affairs commissioner.
'Throughout the district there appears to be a decided undercurrent of feeling against Mulga Downs station, one station manager in a conversation with me referred to the place as being the 'home of combos', another stated that most of the venereal disease emanated from this area, and so Mr Hancock is annoyed because an official visit has been paid to his station, and probably because certain of his white employees have been given a severe dressing down, and a stern warning issued to them.'
Conditions at the station were repeatedly discussed by government officials the following year, with the behaviour of other white employees and their alleged sexual relations with Aboriginal women under scrutiny. Hancock himself was not named as being under investigation for sexual relations with Aboriginal women.
In 1941, after discussion about one employee, the commissioner wrote: 'Mulga Downs has an unsatisfactory record for half castes.
'I feel it is highly desirable to place the station under inspection as frequently as possible.'
Two Mulga Downs employees – named as Buckle and Hughes – were accused of sleeping with Aboriginal women at the station, with authorities asking Hancock to take action and potential prosecution of Buckle discussed.
'As it was apparent that Mulga Downs was the scene of illicit intercourse, it must be suppressed and we expected Mr Hancock of that station to assist us in this direction,' a report said. 'If he proved unwilling to do so then consideration would be given as to whether he was a suitable person to hold a permit to employ natives.'
The advertising entrepreneur John Singleton told Guardian Australia that Hancock, one of his closest friends, had discussed the fact he had relationships with Aboriginal women when he worked as a young man at the station.
He said Lang had never acknowledged being the father of an Aboriginal child, allegedly saying 'not that I know of' when questioned.
'He didn't deny that he had relationships' with Aboriginal women, Singleton said.
He acknowledged that there was a 'terrible' power imbalance in the relationships but defended his friend's actions.
'You've got to realise Lang Hancock then was just an unknown white man. He wasn't a multibillionaire. He was just another bloke living off the bush.'
Find out how Rinehart uses money to control her image in episode 5 of our podcast series Gina
Indigenous Australians can call 13YARN on 13 92 76 for information and crisis support; or call Lifeline on 13 11 14, Mensline on 1300 789 978 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636