News

The dark secrets of Australian swimming’s sordid treatment of female athletes and coaches has been laid bare in a scathing independent ­review into its toxic culture. The report, delivered in December 2021, just months after the swim team basked in the glow of their most successful Olympic Games in Tokyo, revealed women were subjected to physical and mental abuse, groping, disgusting sexual innuendo, body shaming and public humiliation. “Your body looks like a sausage roll,” one athlete was told by her coach. Another swimmer was told: “With an arse like that, you’ll never be a champion”. One swimmer said: “Taking up swimming was the worst decision my parents ever made (for me), and my life has been destroyed as a result.”

The Pastoralists and Graziers Association of WA (PGA) Awards dinner, at Crown Botanicals last week, was a chance to glam up and reflect on a successful day of speakers and interaction at the annual PGA Convention held earlier in the day. The 2023 PGA Rural Achievement Award, for service to the agricultural industry, rural and regional Western Australia and the PGA was announced by PGA president Tony Seabrook. The winner was Gina Rinehart, executive chairman of both Hancock Prospecting and Hancock Agriculture, with the award accepted on her behalf by Hancock Agriculture CEO, Adam Giles.

Kieren Perkins was secretly criticised by high-level investigators for comments while he was still president of Swimming Australia that they claimed discouraged whistleblowers from testifying. While the panel found Perkins did not intend to intimidate potential witnesses, Australia’s highest-ranked sports official was still singled out for the impact of the comments in which he disputed the notion there were cultural issues in the sport.

Messages for Mrs Gina Rinehart AO on the occasion of the announcement of the Awarding a Swimming WA Life Membership for her 32 years supporting swimming in West Australia.

Swimming WA recognises Patron Mrs Gina Rinehart AO with a Life Membership for decades’ of contribution to swimming in West Australia. Pictured with swimming legend Dawn Fraser Article by Tim Clarke courtesy

But Mr Veldsman said that, under the Bill, there was no guarantee those different categories of driver would continue to be paid about the same. “We’re talking about draft legislation where the ‘full rate of pay’ is so unclear, so undefined, so broad and so open to speculation that we can’t say in future if this Bill is to actually pass that we can still do that,” he said. Mr Veldsman added a number of Hancock’s projects had already stalled due to red tape. Another major concern is a proposal to give casual workers the right to ask to convert to permanent employment after six months of regular hours.

Swimming WA Awards of Excellence.

5 October 2023

In the hub of mining and resources companies that is West Perth, Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill is planning a new landmark five story headquarters emblazoned with its signature pink hues. The City of Perth has issued planning approval for a $19.5 million refurbishing of the command post as the company relocates from Perth Airport and into a new statement building of the iron ore giant’s standing in the industry and a tribute to Mrs Rinehart’s late mother, who succumbed to breast cancer in 1983.

It’s a quiet West Perth strip lined by innocuous office buildings and bookended by Parliament House. But if billionaire Gina Rinehart gets her way, Ord Street will soon be home to a five-storey office building donning her mining giant Roy Hill’s hallmark pink. WAtoday can reveal the City of Perth has quietly issued planning approval for $19.5 million in additions and alterations to the building at lot 53, which is set to become the miner’s new corporate headquarters.