Just when this column thought it had wrung dry all possible news, comment, gossip and conjecture about Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart and the use of her image, we were proved wrong. Regular readers will recall the billionaire’s hatred of Vincent Namatjira’s unflattering portrait hung in the National Gallery of Australia. Then there was the painting Rinehart actually approved of, which turned out to have been painted by the wife of the Hancock Prospecting chief executive.
But holy Gruen Transfer ! Rinehart has only gone and given permission for a full-page print advertisement starring herself. The ad, which has run in national newspapers, is for something she actually owns: the iconic rural brand Driza-Bone. Gina’s spinners tried to persuade us it was all old news, but Rinehart’s name in a headline does for our digital ratings what the iron ore boom did to her bank balance.
Driza-Bone advertisement featuring John Bjelke-Petersen and Gina Rinehart. Rinehart bought the bush apparel company late last year via her S Kidman & Co pastoral company with ambitions to expand and revive the firm, which goes back to 1898. With that in mind, she is proudly kitted up in a signature Driza-Bone coat and orange bush hat, standing beside none other than John Bjelke-Petersen , son of the arch-conservative former Queensland premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen (aka the hillbilly dictator), himself a luckless state and federal political candidate several times.
“Gina has been good.
