Gaze slams Rinehart for failure to disassociate from late father’s “vile” comments on Indigenous Australians
Australian sporting legend Andrew Gaze has urged the country’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, to publicly apologise for her father’s comments calling for the sterilisation of First Nations people.
Gaze’s call has come after Rinehart’s mining company Hancock Prospecting sensationally pulled their $15 million deal with Netball Australia on Saturday night.
The plug was pulled on the sponsorship after Diamonds players raised concerns about wearing a uniform that included Hancock Prospecting branding, with Indigenous player Donnell Wallam reportedly uncomfortable with sporting the logo.
The concerns surrounded Rinehart’s father, Lang Hancock, who founded the company and made offensive comments towards Indigenous people in the 1984 documentary Couldn’t be fairer.
“Those that have been assimilated into earning good living and earning wages among the civilised areas and have been accepted into society and can handle society, I’d leave them well alone,” Hancock said.
“The ones that are no good to themselves … I would dope the water up so that they were sterile and would breed themselves out in the future, and that would solve the problem.”
Gaze couldn’t understand why Rinehart has remained silent following calls for her to apologise for those words.
“I am not blaming Gina Rinehart for her father’s comments, but what I don’t understand is why she won’t very publicly disassociate herself from them,” Gaze said on SEN The Run Home.
“(She should say), ‘I love my dad, but (that was wrong)’.
“If my dad had said that, or if my uncle, or anyone associated with me, or if my friend said it, (I would say), ‘I love this person, I’m still going to love him, but I’m going to educate him, I’m going to say, no, that is not the right way to deal with that issue, it is actually vile what you’ve said’.”
While Rinehart’s father passed away in 1992, Gaze went on to say that he would hope to educate anyone that held those views to show them why they were wrong to do so.
“If you can’t reconsider that, then I’m going to question our friendship, if you’re going to maintain that view, then you’re not a friend of mine,” Gaze said.
“Let’s talk about it, let’s discuss it, let’s figure it out, but if you can’t come to the conclusion that sterilising human beings is actually a good thing, then you’re no friend of mine.”