While the children of Gina Rinehart, Australia's richest woman, are battling it out with the family matriarch for control of the clan's billions of dollars, her half-sister is not interested in claiming a part in the Hancock fortune.

Hilda Kickett, the illegitimate daughter of Lang Hancock, even described the family members who are engaged in a court battle over money as acting like village idiots.

Ms Kickett is the daughter of Mr Hancock with an Aboriginal cook and lived at one point in the mining magnate's property at Mulga Downs. However, she spent her younger days in an orphanage although her father occasionally arranged visits for her at his different houses.

She told Nine Network on Tuesday that Mr Hancock had acknowledged her many times.

Her public appearance adds to the growing public information about Ms Rinehart whose unauthorised biography was released in late June by Fairfax Media journalist Adele Ferguson.

Ms Kickett said she knew the estranged Rinehart children and other family members. She said the kids call her aunty and she considers them like her own children.

Ms Rinehart's apparent dislike for extended family members was evident since she does not talk to Ms Kickett. The mining billionaire, also the world's richest woman, likewise had a legal battle against the widow of Mr Hancock, Rose Porteous. But Ms Kickett said she was acknowledged by Ms Porteous.

Ms Rinehart has not acknowledged Ms Kickett as her half-sister, but the latter claims she has DNA proof of her Hancock lineage.

But being an acknowledged Hancock family member is neither a blessing, said estranged son John, who said he has not received any money for many years from his mother or from the trust that Mr Hancock established for his grandchildren.

He told the ABC TV show Four Corners that because of his situation, he has to work with the help of friends in Asia.''

Ms Rinehart declined to appear on the same show, but said in a statement in response to her son's statement about not receiving money from the trust that provisions of the deed contains a prohibition on public disclosure by any party of commercial transactions.

Ms Rinehart's legal battle with her children, however, has taken a back seat temporarily to her attempts to gain seats in Fairfax Media. When the financially hemorrhaging media company rejected her demands, Ms Rinehart - who holds a 19 per cent stake in Fairfax - threatened to sell her shares of the firm. The company's share value has plummeted to just 59 cents on Monday.

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