John Singleton puts on sales pitch for Gina Rinehart in ABC’s Australian Story

SHE’S Australia’s richest woman - and one of its most private. Now a new documentary is set to show a different side to Gina Rinehart - and it features a most surprising Aussie singing her praises.

ABC's Australian Story: Iron, Iron, Iron - The Hancock Dynasty features Gina Rinehart. Picture:ABC

HE’S sold everything from beer to blondes, now John Singleton appears to have taken on the role of chief spruiker for mining magnate Gina Rinehart in a new ABC Australian Story.

In the first sneak peek at next week’s exclusive profile of Rinehart and her determined battle to preserve the Hancock mining fortune, the controversial ad man offers his glowing endorsement of Australia’s richest woman.

In the episode entitled Iron, Iron, Iron - The Hancock Dynasty, Singleton says the company’s Roy Hill mine - which opens in September - exemplifies “Gina’s great strength.”

“Where she’s going to go down in history is she took her dad’s big dreams and made ’em big reality,” Singleton says.

“She built the big mine. She financed the big mine. She made the dream come true.”

The three-minute preview suggests the two-parter will provide Rinehart with the opportunity to counter the tyrannical image she argues TV audiences took away from Channel 9’s drama series, House Of Hancock, about her father Lang, his second wife Rose and their early court battles over the family fortune.

While Rinehart’s legal bid to stop the Nine production from going to air failed, her busy team of lawyers succeeded in negotiating for an edited version to be broadcast earlier this year.

The access given to ABC producers appears to have provided the chief executive the chance to tell her side of the story - arguing her late father would not approve of his grandchildren taking her to court - and winning control - over the trust he left them.

In Monday night’s episode, Rinehart says: “Dad knows how hard it is to build a company, to try and entice financiers to trust us to do the debt financing and yet, still be whatever-ed (sic) by a whole lot of litigation...that’s not the sort of thing Dad will be thrilled with.”

She adds: “I know very well my father would have great feelings about what I have done.”

Singleton says of the family court battle: “It’s a dynastic story of Shakespearean proportions, there’s no doubt about it. And I guess it’s an epic because of the quantum of money involved. Gina’s turned it into the wealthiest company in Australia. On the other hand, it’s also become the most disputed family company in Australia and that’s the pity of it.”

Australian Story: Iron, Iron, Iron - The Hancock Dynasty airs 8pm, July 6 and 13, ABC.

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Originally published as John Singleton puts on sales pitch for Gina Rinehart in ABC’s Australian Story