Gina Rinehart: Controversial Australian Billionaire Accused Of Another Underhanded Move

Gina Rinehart is once against making waves in Australia.

The heir to a multi-billion dollar mining company and the world’s richest woman said last year that Australians should be happy making $2 a day. She also urged Australians to stop being lazy and work harder if they too wanted to achieve great success, an ironic note considering Gina Rinehart inherited her wealth without lifting a finger.

Now Gina is back in the news for a move she pulled with her family’s mining company, Hancock Prospecting. She arranged it so her children would forfeit their shares to her if she was ever removed as head of the family’s multi-billion dollar trust.

The revelation came out in court this week, where Rinehart is locked in a court battle with two of her children over control of the Hope Margaret Hancock Trust.

“The changes she made to the constitution of Hancock Prospecting prevent my clients from ever taking distribution of shares in Hancock Prospecting and prevent her from ever being removed as trustee,” a lawyer for Rinehart’s children noted.

Justice Patricia Bergin, who is overseeing the case, said it was a ”very serious allegation” being made against Gina Rinehart.

”You’ve made a claim [Mrs Rinehart] misbehaved by amending the constitution and that misbehaviour was as trustee for a particular purpose,” Bergin said.

It seems that Rinehart may be trying to prevent her children from following her own easy path to wealth, a stance she’s taken before. In a column last year for Australian Resources and Investment magazine, she said the path to becoming wealthy is paved with hard work.

“There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire,” Gina Rinehart wrote. “If you’re jealous of those with more money, don’t just sit there and complain. Do something to make more money yourself – spend less time drinking or smoking or socializing, and more time working,”