Barnaby Joyce dragged into Gina Rinehart, Bianca Rinehart court fight

Barnaby Joyce is dragged into Gina Rinehart’s family war – as the country’s richest woman accuses her OWN daughter of trying to ’embarrass’ MP in court after infamous TV interview

  • Bianca Rinehart is suing her mother over multi-billion dollar family trust dispute  
  • Gina Rinehart’s daughter claimed in court that company has withheld money
  • Last month, Bianca demanded Barnaby Joyce provide documents to the court
  • Gina’s lawyer ‘suggests timing consistent with intention to embarrass Mr Joyce’
  • The document demand was set aside by NSW Chief Equity Justice Julie Ward
  • Judge made no finding about any ‘improper motive’ behind Ms Rinehart’s move 

The eldest daughter of mining billionaire Gina Rinehart has been accused of trying to ’embarrass’ Barnaby Joyce in court amid the fallout from his paid TV interview.  

Bianca Rinehart is suing her mother in the New South Wales Supreme Court in a dispute over a multi-billion dollar family trust she was appointed trustee of in 2015. 

Ms Rinehart has claimed in draft court documents that her mother’s iron ore company, Hancock Prospecting, withheld $500 million in dividend payments to the trust.

Just last month, Ms Rinehart subpoenaed Mr Joyce over a $40,000 donation the company made to him at a farming industry function on November 21, 2017.

Bianca Rinehart is suing her mother in the New South Wales Supreme Court in a dispute over a multi-billion dollar family trust that she won control of in 2015

Ms Rinehart's subpoena came days after Mr Joyce and his partner Vikki Campion gave a TV interview, on the proviso the $150,000 payment went into a trust for their son Sebastian

Ms Rinehart’s subpoena came days after Mr Joyce and his partner Vikki Campion gave a TV interview, on the proviso the $150,000 payment went into a trust for their son Sebastian

Bianca wanted her mother’s company to explain the payment – which came in the form of an oversized novelty cheque – and which Mr Joyce handed back.

Ms Rinehart demanded any documents between the MP and her mother’s business about financial matters, Justice Julie Ward was told. 

She also asked for any communications referring to litigation between Gina and her children.  

But the mining magnate’s lawyer asked the court to set the demand aside because the subpoenas ‘amount to no more than a fishing expedition’.

Gina’s legal team submitted ‘that the timing … which occurred after a much publicised television interview… was consistent with an intention to embarrass Mr Joyce,’ the court judgment said.

Ms Rinehart’s also asked for information about the company’s donations to the right-wing Institute of Public Affairs and the business CEF Pty Ltd. 

Gina Rinehart's lawyer 'suggested that the timing ... which occurred after a much publicised television interview... with consistent with an intention to embarrass Mr Joyce', a judgment said

Justice Julie Ward set aside Bianca Rinehart's Joyce subpoena

Justice Julie Ward set aside Bianca Rinehart’s (pictured on right) Joyce subpoena

The judge set aside the subpoena to Mr Joyce after he produced only one document which did not ‘fall within its terms’. 

But Justice Julie Ward stressed she was making no finding about whether there was ‘any improper motivation’ in Ms Rinehart issuing the Joyce subpoena.  

The other two subpoena requests were partly set aside. The case goes to hearing on August 27.

Mr Joyce resigned from the frontbench following revelations he fathered a son with his media adviser Vikki Campion. 

BAD VIBES: BARNABY INTERVENED IN PREVIOUS RINEHART DISPUTE 

Gina Rinehart is friends with the controversial Nationals MP

Gina Rinehart is friends with the controversial Nationals MP

Barnaby Joyce earned the umbrage of some of Gina Rinehart’s children for a letter he wrote to one of her daughters in September 2011. 

In correspondence shown to a court, Mr Joyce asked Hope Welker to keep the family’s long running dispute ‘in house’. 

‘Please if you can give me the grace of just considering the following,’ Mr Joyce wrote.

‘Australia needs strong families and Hope we need, really need, yours to be strong.

Mrs Rinehart’s son John Hancock later branded the Nationals MP’s intervention ‘outrageous’.   

Mr Hancock slammed Mr Joyce as a ‘bully’ in a series of tweets in February.

 

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