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News Corp first reported Rinehart’s decision to step away from funding the governing body — to instead focus on payments given directly to individual athletes — has created a gaping hole the sport has not been able to recover from. It was revealed in August the mining mogul has pumped a staggering $60 million of her estimated $37.1b fortune into various Aussie Olympic teams, including swimming, volleyball and rowing. It is no secret the Australian swimming team has always been her darling. She was poolside at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships in Japan in July as the Aussie team blew the Americans out of the water with 13 gold medals. Aussie star Shayna Jack made a special thankyou to Rinehart on the pool deck after the Aussie 4x100m mixed freestyle relay team won gold. “We couldn’t be prouder and also just to have Gina in the crowd supporting us, that’s amazing,” she said on Channel 9.

The 69-year-old Australian billionaire has reportedly stopped contributing money to Swimming Australia for the past two years — instead supporting 92 elite swimmers with direct payments through the Hancock Prospecting Swimmer Support Scheme — leaving the federation with a $7 million shortfall in sponsorship revenue. This week, details about her frustrations with Swimming Australia finally came to light.

The Australian Artistic Swimming team, development squad and coaches were on deck at our Perth Headquarters last month to learn about their Principal Partner, Hancock Prospecting. Our Executive Chairman, Mrs Gina Rinehart, is the largest individual supporter of Australian Olympic and Paralympic athletes, and through Hancock Prospecting, Roy Hill is an Australian Olympic Partner. In the latest edition of the Athlete Roadshow Series, employees from across the Hancock Prospecting companies briefed the team on the various operating businesses, our vital work in the community and the diverse range of career opportunities in mining. Hancock Agriculture businesses were on hand to provide the team with a nutritious lunch, including products from 2GR Wagyu, Kidman Pies and Bannister Downs flavoured milk. Artistic swimming is one of the four Olympic sports with Hancock Prospecting as its principal partner, along with swimming, rowing and volleyball.

The dark secrets of Australian swimming’s sordid treatment of female athletes and coaches has been laid bare in a scathing independent ­review into its toxic culture. The report, delivered in December 2021, just months after the swim team basked in the glow of their most successful Olympic Games in Tokyo, revealed women were subjected to physical and mental abuse, groping, disgusting sexual innuendo, body shaming and public humiliation. “Your body looks like a sausage roll,” one athlete was told by her coach. Another swimmer was told: “With an arse like that, you’ll never be a champion”. One swimmer said: “Taking up swimming was the worst decision my parents ever made (for me), and my life has been destroyed as a result.”

The Pastoralists and Graziers Association of WA (PGA) Awards dinner, at Crown Botanicals last week, was a chance to glam up and reflect on a successful day of speakers and interaction at the annual PGA Convention held earlier in the day. The 2023 PGA Rural Achievement Award, for service to the agricultural industry, rural and regional Western Australia and the PGA was announced by PGA president Tony Seabrook. The winner was Gina Rinehart, executive chairman of both Hancock Prospecting and Hancock Agriculture, with the award accepted on her behalf by Hancock Agriculture CEO, Adam Giles.

Kieren Perkins was secretly criticised by high-level investigators for comments while he was still president of Swimming Australia that they claimed discouraged whistleblowers from testifying. While the panel found Perkins did not intend to intimidate potential witnesses, Australia’s highest-ranked sports official was still singled out for the impact of the comments in which he disputed the notion there were cultural issues in the sport.

Messages for Mrs Gina Rinehart AO on the occasion of the announcement of the Awarding a Swimming WA Life Membership for her 32 years supporting swimming in West Australia.

Swimming WA recognises Patron Mrs Gina Rinehart AO with a Life Membership for decades’ of contribution to swimming in West Australia. Pictured with swimming legend Dawn Fraser Article by Tim Clarke courtesy

But Mr Veldsman said that, under the Bill, there was no guarantee those different categories of driver would continue to be paid about the same. “We’re talking about draft legislation where the ‘full rate of pay’ is so unclear, so undefined, so broad and so open to speculation that we can’t say in future if this Bill is to actually pass that we can still do that,” he said. Mr Veldsman added a number of Hancock’s projects had already stalled due to red tape. Another major concern is a proposal to give casual workers the right to ask to convert to permanent employment after six months of regular hours.

Swimming WA Awards of Excellence.