By Kishor Napier-Raman and Noel Towell
Gina Rinehart isn’t the type to be duped by scammers. Yet con artists seem irresistibly attracted to Australia’s richest person.
The mining magnate had to go public, again, after fraudsters tried, again, to use her name to swindle wannabe crypto investors out of their hard-earned cash.
Responding on Wednesday to fake news articles on social media claiming Rinehart invested in a start-up cryptocurrency platform that could make you “rich” in seven days, the billionaire’s people warned punters to steer clear.
“Mrs Rinehart has not made the alleged investment or recommendations or quotes set forth in these adverts,” the billionaire miner’s people said in a statement.
“This is a scam designed to use Mrs Rinehart’s positive corporate image to lure people in to invest.”
Gina RinehartCredit: John Shakespeare
Rinehart isn’t the only celebrity unwittingly co-opted to the fake crypto cause.
Rinehart’s fellow West Australian mining billionaire Andrew Forrest is pursuing a case against Facebook parent company Meta, claiming the tech giant failed to stop clickbait advertising scams promoting bogus investment schemes from using his image.
Scammers also keep using Sunrise host David Koch for some reason.
Meanwhile, back in 2015, a time of the relatively low-tech “419” email scams, Rinehart’s name was used in a con “seeking assistance with the depositing of funds from an alleged charity for humanitarian purposes”.
Before that, con artists were spinning fabulist tales of a Rinehart-backed charitable foundation worth $200 million. Ambitious. Just a shame the scammers in question couldn’t spell.
Still, some of Gina’s real investments over the years have been a little offbeat. Most notably the $23 million she pumped into News.net, a failed media start-up pitched by former twice-bankrupt Queensland businessman and media entrepreneur Michael Norris.
Norris then went on to use Rinehart’s name to convince other investors to put money into the business which collapsed last year owing money to employees, creditors and investors.
Backing Labor
It looks like the big end of town were betting on a Minns government. In the final fortnight of last month’s election campaign, Labor raked in $112,000 worth of donations, according to disclosures with the NSW electoral commission.
The Liberals, meanwhile, haven’t declared a single cent since the end of February. Maybe they haven’t gotten around to it yet, seeing as how they are still desperately trying to find a new leader.
Amid plenty of money from the usual suspects – unions, lobbyists and the like – Labor got three donations worth a total of $9000 from Catherine and David Harris, co-founders of status-symbol supermarket Harris Farm.
A fundraiser with now Premier Chris Minns and federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers elicited a flurry of cash, including a handy $5000 from Keep Them Honest, a company registered to fund manager Fred Woollard, a generous donor to teal independents, Climate 200 and the Greens, that is, until the party returned the money over Woollard’s fossil fuel investments.
Labor, like Climate 200, seem all too happy with taking the money.
Surprise donors to NSW parties
Despite Labor’s victory, there was still some dough around for right-of-centre parties.
The Nationals got about $60,000 in the final fortnight, with lobbyists Barton Deakin ($7000) and the Pharmacy Guild ($6250) coming up big. We were a little more intrigued by $5000 received by the Nats from Bellevue Hill resident Gretel Packer, whose name stood out amid a list of cashed-up farmers and regional car dealership owners.
There was also a bit of cash coming in for One Nation, whose NSW leader Mark Latham has since disgraced himself by making vile homophobic comments that were widely condemned.
No surprises about some of the donors – $12,000 from Rodney O’Neil, scion of an eastern suburbs dynasty who regularly funds conservative causes like the anti-Voice campaign. Another $9000 from ASX-listed miners Nucoal and its chair Gordon Galt.
Slightly more surprising was $3000 from former defence minister Christopher Pyne’s lobbying firm Pyne and Partners – although Chris still had $2500 to give his old party.
But the one we’re most surprised by was a $3000 donation to One Nation from Angela Farr-Jones, wife of ex-Wallabies captain Nick Farr-Jones.
Whatever their motivations, it was hardly a great investment given One Nation’s underwhelming poll showing.
CANCELLED BOOKINGS
CBD was intrigued to learn that outspoken South Australian Liberal senator Alex Antic was the proud recipient of 56 copies of a book called Cancel Culture and the Left’s Long March by anti-woke warrior Kevin Donnelly, donated by Wilkinson Publishing.
It’s not unusual for politicians to be gifted books, it happens all the time, whether they want them or not. But 56 copies stands out from the crowd a bit.
Wilkinson is an interesting outfit, home to the literary efforts of people like men’s rights activist Bettina Arndt, alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos (remember him?) and – someone who knows more than most about being cancelled these days – Mark Latham.
Antic’s register of interests entry notes the books were gifted for the purpose of being given away. The senator, very much in the anti-woke camp himself, told us he didn’t have any particular recipients in mind and the books would be passed on as door prizes at events, that sort of thing.
We gave both Donnelly and Wilkinson a shout to see if there was a grander plan at play with this gift but didn’t hear back.
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