CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Netball Australia will not be turning its back on a multi-million dollar sponsorship lifeline from Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting – despite the very clear concerns that the players have with this kind of whoring from the board members.
For nearly a decade, the mining billionaire heiress has financially supported international Australian sporting teams and the Olympians, which is probably the closest thing we’ll ever get to her paying tax.
However, due to the role that the Hancock/Rinehart family have played in the destruction of our planet, it seems that growing swathes of athletes are now pressuring their sporting bodies to find the cash elsewhere.
And after three years of rotating between record-break bushfires and record-breaking floods, it’s become more apparent than ever that maybe these Australian mining dynasties aren’t actually the good guys anymore.
However, Netball Australia has reinforced support for the partnership, saying the four-year deal with billionaire Gina Rinehart’s company, worth $15 million, underpins their entire program.
The sports body has suffered losses of more than $7 million throughout the pandemic, and the Rinehart deal is their only hope for survival.
Although, Netball Australia did say in its statement it had been decided it was not in the “best interests” of the players to wear the company’s logo as a strip on their dress – as it could prove a distraction. But they will likely plaster the logo all over their social media, events and merchandise.
Former skipper Sharni Norder said on Monday that there was concerns raised by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander players over Hancock Prospecting’s very well hidden record on Indigenous matters.
This dates back to infamous comments made by Rinehart’s late father Lang Hancock, who openly used to promote white supremacist ideology and called for the sterilisation of Aboriginal men on live television not even 40 years ago.
Unfortunately for any of the players who have an issue with full blown racism and environmental vandalism, there are no other options for Netball Australia – who will take the thirty pieces of silver from Rinehart and smile.
Gina Rinehart was approached for comment but insisted that this issue had resolved itself.
“I pay them to play, not to think”
“Shut up and dance servants”
