WA court reshapes iron ore royalties in long-running Rinehart–Bennett feud
A decades-old partnership that helped unlock Western Australia’s iron ore wealth returned to the courtroom this week, with the WA Supreme Court handing down a sprawling 1,500-page judgment that affirmed Gina Rinehart’s ownership of key mining assets while finding the Wright and Rhodes interests were entitled to more than they had been receiving from long-held tenements.
The ruling is the latest turn in a high-stakes civil battle that has pitted the families of iron ore pioneers Lang Hancock and Peter Wright against each other, and even set siblings at odds. On one side is Rinehart — Australia’s richest person and a prominent public figure — and on the other is Angela Bennett, an intensely private billionaire and the daughter of Wright.
Justice Jennifer Smith, who delivered the judgment, noted the origins of the dispute lie in formal agreements made decades ago by men who were friends and colleagues.
She paid tribute to the partnership between Hancock and Wright, and also acknowledged the involvement of fellow prospector Don Rhodes, writing that at the heart of the case were arrangements born of “harmonious and cooperative” efforts to explore and prospect for iron ore in the East Pilbara.
That harmony has long since evaporated, with the court concluding the Wright and Rhodes camps had been underpaid on royalties linked to tenements worth billions of dollars. This was not the first time Bennett’s side has prevailed over Rinehart in court.
In 2010, after a nine-year legal battle, the Supreme Court stripped Rinehart of her 25 per cent stake in the Rhodes Ridge iron ore project and awarded it to Wright Prospecting, which already held 25 per cent. The decision was found to be consistent with a 1984 Hancock–Wright agreement to split their assets and was upheld despite a series of appeals from the Rinehart camp.
That earlier victory proved lucrative for the Wright family and encouraged further litigation, culminating in this week’s decision. The judgment underscores how agreements struck by Hancock and Wright — who met at Perth’s Hale College in the 1920s, later cementing their partnership with a handshake after a Pilbara station visit — continue to shape the distribution of today’s iron ore wealth.