Rinehart bankrolls Hanson and the press act surprised

SMH · Rob Harris · Friday 1 May 2026

Rinehart bankrolls Hanson and the press act surprised

Gina Rinehart's plane gift to One Nation is treated as a scandal, but cultivating political influence has been the family business since Lang Hancock was running the Pilbara.

Hancock's daughter bankrolling Hanson is the most natural transaction in Australian politics — old money buying noisy populism the way you'd buy a sheepdog. The shock isn't the jet. The shock is anyone pretending the iron ore set ever did politics any other way.

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