Mining magnate Clive Palmer says he would consider following in the footsteps of fellow billionaire Gina Rinehart and buying significant stakes in Australian media companies.

Ms Rinehart, Australia's richest person, bought a 13 per cent stake in Fairfax Media in a surprise move earlier this week.

Mr Palmer told Lateline he is concerned about concentrated media ownership in Australia and the professional standards of Australian journalists.

"Fairfax looks very exciting," Mr Palmer said.

"You could have an east-west play with Fairfax. Gina could come from the west and buy 15 per cent, and we could buy 30 per cent from the eastern side of Australia and really get the place humming again.

"I'll have to consider that overnight and see what my stockbroker tells me in the morning and my financial advisers.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-03/clive-palmer-considers-turning-media-mogul/3808710

THE bitter battle between Gina Rinehart and her three eldest children has escalated, with Australia's richest person threatening to withdraw the ''ransom insurance policy'' she holds for the family unless they agree to keep details of the legal action private.

After intimate emails between Mrs Rinehart and two of her daughters were splashed across newspapers around the world on Friday, the iron ore magnate said she would discontinue the relevant insurance policies unless her children agreed to support her latest bid for a suppression order in court today.

"We have been very close our entire lives and I fear she has been used by our mother, since at the time when the proceedings commenced Ginia sent an email saying she supported us 100 per cent."

Emails published in The Australian Financial Review this morning reveal Ginia initially supported her elder siblings in taking legal action against their mother to remove her as trustee.

However, she later had a change of heart and sided with her mother.

Ms Welker said the legal action, launched in September 2011, was a last resort.

"We did not want to go to court but were given no option when threatened with bankruptcy if we did not immediately sign a Deed to further relinquish our rights as beneficiaries," she said.

"All we want is to ensure the assets and income of the Trust are managed in a proper and lawful fashion.

"It is deplorable that we are subject to such vitriolic attack in taking that stand; the full facts can now be known and the public can judge for themselves.

"We hope for a quick resolution but it is not one available by mediation, unfortunately.

"My mother well knows the reasons why this is so, and my siblings and I renew our call for her to step down. if nothing else it will give her more time to manage her majority share of the family company."

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/third-rinehart-daughter-breaks-silence-in-response-to-vitriolic-attack-20120312-1utxk.html#ixzz1osCO8mw4

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Meanwhile, Barnaby plants his nose in other people business without knowing the dif between billions and millions:

Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce has become embroiled in the billion-dollar Rinehart family feud with revelations he wrote to one of the mining magnate's daughters urging her to drop the case.

The letter from Senator Joyce to Hope Welker is among a raft of documents expected to be made public today when the NSW Supreme Court releases previously secret submissions in the court case against Gina Rinehart by her three estranged children.

Senator Joyce admitted yesterday that he wrote the letter and had counselled Mrs Welker against her action.

"It was a letter that basically I thought was sage advice to keep things out of the media," he said.

"And now they are in the media, so it's kind of irrelevant what I said there. That's the end of my comment."

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/13139619/joyce-role-in-gina-feud/

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/rinehart-offered-money-to-daughter-to-drop-lawsuit-court-papers-reveal-20120312-1uu3a.html#ixzz1osgmrDUt

The three children allege she engaged in serious misconduct by changing the date they can access their money to 2068 and want her removed as head of the trust.

Ms Rinehart denies the allegations and pulled out all stops to try to have the case heard in private mediation, even launching a failed High Court bid.

As the case got underway in the Supreme Court in Sydney today, the lawyer for the three children, Andrew Bell SC, made the shock announcement that Ms Rinehart had changed the vesting date of the trust again to April 30, 2012.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-05-09/court-hears-rinehart-changed-date-on-trust-again/4000910

Hungry Jack's founder and Gina Rinehart ally Jack Cowin has been appointed to the Fairfax board as an independent director, effective immediately.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/justin/?WT.svl=news

see also:

http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/the-coming-oligarchy-rinehart-to-take-18-of-fairfax-demands-three-board-seats-and-right-to-hire-and-fire-editors/

If one extra word comes out in the SMH against global warming from this new appointment, Hungry Jack and its farting cows will become the centre of ridicule...

Gina Rinehart's son John Hancock has taken aim at federal Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce over his involvement in a dispute over a multi-billion dollar family trust.

Yesterday the New South Wales Supreme Court ordered that Gina Rinehart's daughter Bianca Rinehart be appointed trustee of the funds, currently worth more than $4 billion.

Justice Paul Brereton said Ms Rinehart had demonstrated the ability to robustly assert the rights of the trust over her mother and her company Hancock Prospecting.

In handing down his decision, Justice Brereton said it had become clear throughout the proceedings Mrs Rinehart had "gone to extraordinary lengths" to maintain control directly or indirectly of the trust.

Gina Rinehart's eldest son, John Hancock, told Radio National Breakfast the pressure extended beyond the family, with Barnaby Joyce sending his sister Hope an email trying to convince her not to proceed.

"Coming from his government email I just think it's extraordinary, and this character sits three chairs down from our Prime Minister," Mr Hancock told RN business editor Sheryl Bagwell.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-29/gina-rinehart-barnaby-joyce-slammed-over-trust-pressure/6506022