By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
Just when this column thought it had wrung dry all possible news, comment, gossip and conjecture about Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart and the use of her image, we were proved wrong.
Regular readers will recall the billionaire’s hatred of Vincent Namatjira’s unflattering portrait hung in the National Gallery of Australia. Then there was the painting Rinehart actually approved of, which turned out to have been painted by the wife of the Hancock Prospecting chief executive.
But holy Gruen Transfer! Rinehart has only gone and given permission for a full-page print advertisement starring herself. The ad, which has run in national newspapers, is for something she actually owns: the iconic rural brand Driza-Bone.
Gina’s spinners tried to persuade us it was all old news, but Rinehart’s name in a headline does for our digital ratings what the iron ore boom did to her bank balance.
Driza-Bone advertisement featuring John Bjelke-Petersen and Gina Rinehart.
Rinehart bought the bush apparel company late last year via her S Kidman & Co pastoral company with ambitions to expand and revive the firm, which goes back to 1898.
With that in mind, she is proudly kitted up in a signature Driza-Bone coat and orange bush hat, standing beside none other than John Bjelke-Petersen, son of the arch-conservative former Queensland premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen (aka the hillbilly dictator), himself a luckless state and federal political candidate several times.
“Gina has been good friends with my family for years,” said Bjelke-Petersen, who told us his friend was looking for a suitable property for a shoot and settled on the clan’s Bethany, near Kingaroy.
Being a fashion model was something of a departure for him, we suggested.
“In farming these days, you have to diversify,” he replied, adding that the family conducts tours of the property, run cattle and an accommodation business.
So who makes the scones which entered Australian folklore under his mother, Lady Flo Bjelke-Petersen? “My wife, Karen. If I made them, not too many people would be eating.”
CLIVE’S U-TURN
Controversial businessman and perennial frontrunner for CBD Personality of the Year Clive Palmer sure knows how to flex.
Just last month, the mining billionaire abandoned a proposal before the Sunshine Coast Council to build a huge vintage car and motorcycle museum at his Palmer Coolum Resort. There was strong community backlash and objections from local council planning officers.
Clive Palmer at the Palmer Coolum Resort with a car from his vast car collection.Credit: Glenn Hunt
But on Wednesday, in an entirely different part of the state, Somerset Regional Council approved the billionaire car-enthusiast’s museum plans on a site just south of Lake Wivenhoe.
The Patrick Estate Museum proposal includes 928 car display bays, 278 motorcycles, 10 short-term accommodation units, caretaker’s dwelling, food kiosk, cafe, gift shop and workshop.
The museum would display “prized cars such as Princess Margaret and Louis Mountbatten’s Rolls-Royce”, and turn over $9 million annually in revenue, a report to council said.
While we’re on the subject of cars, we’re steering well away from that 2022 controversy, condemned as “fake news” by Palmer himself, that he had bought Adolf Hitler’s 1939 four-door Mercedes-Benz 770 Grosser Offener Tourenwagen for the collection. Readers, it never happened.
GET THE DOGS
Within hours of this masthead revealing a former Greyhound Racing NSW vet’s allegations of barbaric animal cruelty, the regulator’s chief executive, Robert Macaulay, was out.
The turbulence didn’t exactly arrive out of the blue. Days earlier, NSW Racing Minister David Harris had asked the GRNSW board to show cause as to why it shouldn’t be stood down.
All this has left the regulator’s former chair, ex-Nationals senator John “Wacka” Williams, with plenty of egg on his face. On Monday, Wacka had penned a glowing tribute to Macaulay’s leadership in The Daily Telegraph, claiming he was responsible for improvement to the industry which was nearly banned by former premier Mike Baird.
“This industry needs people with a strong intestinal fortitude running it, including those overseeing at Macquarie Street, Sydney. It is called leadership,” Wacka thundered. That aged well.
Harris has given the board has until Friday to persuade him not to sack them. Among directors is defamation lawyer Rebekah Giles, deputy chair since 2021. We really can’t picture her at Dapto dogs, but stranger things have happened.
REPUBLICAN RABBLE-ROUSERS
The Australian Republic Movement has finally settled on a new leadership team after co-chairs Craig Foster and Nova Peris departed following a dispute over the war in Gaza.
On Wednesday, Esther Anatolitis and Nathan Hansford were announced as the new co-chairs.
Esther Anatolitis will co-chair the ARM.Credit: Sarah Walker
We hadn’t heard of them either. Turns out Anatolitis edits literary magazine Meanjin. Hansford is chief executive of something called the International Development Contractors Community.
“We’re not famous,” Anatolitis admitted to CBD. “But neither are the members of the ARM – they’re just everyday Australians from all across the continent.”