By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
Just when this column thought it had absolutely wrung dry all possible permutations of news, titbits, comment, gossip and conjecture about Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, and the use of her image in paintings, caricatures, cartoons, photographs and the like with her permission/against her will – we were proved wrong.
Driza-Bone advertisement featuring John Bjeke-Petersen and Gina Rinehart.
Regular readers will recall the controversy over Rinehart’s hate of the unflattering Vincent Namatjira portrait in the National Gallery of Australia. Then there was the painting Rinehart actually approved of, which turned out to have been painted by Alix Korte, wife of Hancock Prospecting chief executive Garry Korte.
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, famous for its oilskin coats.
Our contact at Rinehart Global HQ tried to persuade us that it was all old news – after all, Rinehart bought the bush apparel company late last year via her S. Kidman & Co pastoral company, with the ambition to expand and revive the firm, which dates back to 1898.
With that in mind, she is proudly kitted up in a signature Driza-Bone coat with an orange bush hat on her head, standing beside none other than John Bjelke-Petersen, the son of the former conservative Queensland premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, and 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 Bjelke-Petersen spread 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 and runs an accommodation business.
So who makes the famous scones that entered Australian folklore under his mother, Lady Flo Bjelke-Petersen? “My wife, Karen. If I made them, not too many people would be eating.”
PALMER U-TURN
Controversial businessman and leading contender for the CBD Personality of the Year Awards, Clive Palmer, sure knows how to flex.
It was only last month that the freedom-loving mining billionaire, backer of the United Australia Party and former federal MP for the Queensland seat of Fairfax abandoned at the last minute a proposal before the Sunshine Coast council to build a huge vintage car and motorcycle museum at his Palmer Coolum Resort. There had been strong community backlash and objections from local council planning officers.
But on Wednesday, in an entirely different part of the state, a 1½-hour drive west of Brisbane, Somerset Regional Council approved the museum plans on a site just south of Lake Wivenhoe.
Clive Palmer at the Palmer Coolum Resort with a car from his vast collection.Credit: Glenn Hunt
The Patrick Estate Museum proposal includes 928 car display bays, 278 motorcycles, 10 short-term accommodation units, a caretaker’s dwelling, kiosk, cafe, gift shop and workshop. It will be Australia’s largest car museum.
The museum would display “prized cars such as Princess Margaret‘s and Louis Mountbatten’s Rolls Royce”, and turn over $9 million annually in revenue, a report to the council said.
And note, even though we are on the subject of cars, we are steering well away from that 2022 controversy – condemned as “fake news” by the billionaire himself – that Palmer had bought Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler’s 1939 four-door Mercedes-Benz 770 Grosser Offener Tourenwagen for the museum’s collection. Readers, it never happened.
NEW HANDS FOR ARM
We’ve been keeping an eye on the Australian Republic Movement (ARM) of late, which risks fading into obscurity after the departure of high-profile co-chairs Craig Foster and Nova Peris following a recent dispute over the war in Gaza.
CBD had heard Adam Spencer was tapped for the role amid concerns about the risks of appointing low-profile successors to Foster and Peris.
On Wednesday, the ARM finally revealed its new national co-chairs, Esther Anatolitis and Nathan Hansford.
Nup, we hadn’t either.
Turns out Anatolitis is editor of the Australian literary magazine Meanjin, based in Melbourne. And Canberra guy Hansford is chief executive of something called the International Development Contractors Community. Neither are exactly household names.
Esther AnatolitisCredit: Sarah Walker
“We’re not famous,” Anatolitis conceded to CBD.
“But neither are the members of the ARM. They’re just everyday Australians from all across the continent,” she said.
After last year’s Voice referendum result probably cruelled Labor’s hopes of a second-term Republic push, the ARM has much work to do. We hear they’re hoping to make a big splash should the King visit Australia in October.
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