Susie O’Brien: Cultural values worth more than sponsor dollars

Many companies who sponsor sporting teams are robust enough to accept conscientious objections. If Gina Rinehart really cares about netball, she will, too.

Don’t blame the Diamonds netballers for losing their sport’s $15m lifeline.

Blame Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart.

She’s the one who made the decision to pull the sponsorship and she is the one who should now reinstate the deal.

Unlike other large companies which have managed to accommodate conscientious objections from individual players, Hancock Prospecting wants to control its players’ feelings as well as their actions.

By insisting on players displaying their logo with “pride”, the mining company is demanding players overlook its contested history of race relations and put aside their personal ethics.

The appalling situation arose after the team’s first Indigenous player in a generation, Donnell Wallam, raised concerns about Hancock Prospecting’s record on Aboriginal issues. This meant she initially didn’t want to display the company’s logo on her uniform.

Wallam took issue with comments made by the man who started Hancock Prospecting, Rinehart’s father, Lang Hancock.

Gina Rinehart is using sponsorship of netball as a vehicle to promote her business. Picture: Getty Images

In 1984, Hancock said Aboriginal people should “breed themselves out”.

“I would dope the water up so that they were sterile… that would solve the problem,” he said.

He’s also on record as saying that Aboriginal land rights “shouldn’t exist”.

Rather than engaging with the issues Wallam raised, Rinehart labelled the netballer’s stance as “tedious virtue-signalling”.

Buckling under pressure, Wallam backed down and agreed to wear the company’s logo, but a day later Hancock Prospecting pulled its $15m, four-year support of the team and sport.

Hancock Prospecting said it did not wish to add to “netball’s disunity problems” but by pulling the funding it shows it doesn’t actually support the sport, it just supports itself.

Rinehart should step up and reinstate the funding, not just to the Diamonds but to Netball WA and the West Coast Fever.

Hancock Prospecting and Rinehart are much bigger than one netball player and should have graciously accommodated Wallam’s wishes in the same way as many other companies offering sponsorship to sporting teams.

Hancock Prospecting said the company was frustrated that sport was being “used as the vehicle for social or political causes”.

It’s ironic because Rinehart is using sponsorship of netball as a vehicle to promote her business.

Hancock Prospecting pulled its $15m sponsorship with the Diamonds.

Companies who want an image boost from sponsorship must accept that players now feel more entitled than ever to speak up about their views and ethics.

At times there will be uncomfortable truths and inconvenient comments, but it’s part of modern sponsorship today.

Cricket captain Pat Cummings has spoken out against Cricket Australia’s deal with Alinta, described as Australia’s seventh biggest climate polluter in this year by Greenpeace without the deal being pulled.

Cricketers have also been told they will be supported if they want to opt out of sponsor engagements with companies such as Saudi oil giant Aramco.

Members of the Fremantle Dockers have spoken out about sponsor Woodside’s status as a fossil fuel company, and the company hasn’t immediately withdrawn its support. Similarly, AFL players have also spoken out against the organisation’s sponsorship deal with Sportsbet without repercussions.

Cricket captain Pat Cummings has spoken out against Cricket Australia’s deal with Alinta.

Wallam’s inclusion in the Diamonds as a young Indigenous woman has been hailed by many as a great milestone for the sport – she’s only the third in 85 years.

However, we should not expect players like her to have to check their culture at the door. Such players are celebrated as role models in their communities, and should be not only expected, but respected, for acting in line with their cultural values.

It’s disappointing that female politicians such as Senator Jacqui Lambie has said the netballers should “suck it up unless you find someone else to pick up that tab”.

The bigger question is why Netball Australia isn’t properly funded by the government, and hasn’t been given more help to recover losses from the cost of Covid hubs. The previous federal government lavished money during Covid on many wealthy firms and private schools and the current one should do more now to bail out Netball Australia so they would not be so dependent on sponsorship dollars to exist.

Now the ball is in Rinehart’s court, and if she really cares about netball she’ll reverse the decision.

Other major Australian and international companies who sponsor sporting teams are robust enough to accept and accommodate conscientious objections from players, but Rinehart doesn’t see it this way.

Wallam might be the first to raise objections to Hancock Prospecting’s sponsorship, but I doubt she will be the last.

Originally published as Susie O’Brien: Cultural values worth more than sponsor dollars