Ginia Rinehart Urged Sister Hope Welker to Accept $300M Pre-Lawsuit Offer of Mum
Had estranged Rinehart daughter Hope Welker listened to her younger sister, Ginia, she would not have complained of having only $60,000 in the bank and no funds to hire a cook and nanny as well as money to send her children to school in New York.
Ginia, the young Rinehart child, who sided with her billionaire mother, Gina Rinehart, gave the unsolicited advice to Ms Welker two months before the latter and two other siblings filed in 2011 a lawsuit seeking the removal of their mother as head of a family trust opened by their grandfather, Lang Hancock.
"Why the hell don't you just take the $300 million dollars mum has repeatedly offered you and walk away . . . You clearly do not want to be a part of our family, nor have you ever wanted to be part of the company, so take the money and walk away from everything! That way you can not have to deal with mum as trustee!" Fairfax journalist Adele Ferguson cited the Nov 22, 2011 email of Ginia to Hope.
Ginia gave the advice after she received emails from Hope asking her younger sister to shoulder her daughter April's preschool fees amounting to $20,000.
"I'm in a corner with a gun at my head. I can't afford rent. I can't afford the kids education. I don't know what else to do or who else to ask," Hope pleaded with Ginia.
In response, Ginia shot back: "Not that you deserve a penny as you have never worked a day in your life but if you cannot live with 300 million dollars for doing absolutely nothing then you really are disgusting."
Such a generous parting-of-ways offer was made only to Hope, not to other sister Bianca or brother John Hancock, who even negotiated for $15 million sorry money from their mother behind the back of his sisters.
More juicy details of the Rinehart family court feud are expected to come out as Ms Rinehart has filed a second lawsuit to force a second journalist to turn over her notes of interviews with John and Bianca which she used to write another unauthorised biography, titled The House of Hancock: The Rise and Rise of Gina Rinehart, of the mining magnate.
The book, published in 2012, was written by Debi Marshall, the second journalist that Ms Rinehart had their notes subpoenaed after she made a similar court summon on Ms Ferguson.
Ms Marshall had also authored in 2000 a book about the elder Hancock, and she also used John and Bianca as resource persons. However, Ms Marshall said she has nothing to offer the billionaire. Like Ms Ferguson, she believes that journalists must protect their sources even if the party requesting the information is the largest stockholder of the media company where they are employed.
Ms Rinehart has also sent a similar subpoena to The West Australian reporter Steve Pennells.
Ms Welker officially withdrew her participation in the lawsuit against her mum, but it is not known if she was given the same $300 million offer that Ms Rinehart made in 2011 as settlement.