Energy Hero: Australian Coal Baron Gina Reinhart

December 23, 2022

We find our next 2022 energy hero overseas, and specifically, down under! Gina Reinhart is the head of the Australian mining company Hancock Prospecting and a major supporter of women’s sports in the country. This year, she made a $15 million donation to Netball Australia to support the growth of that sport. However, woke players in the sport refused to wear her company’s logo on their shirts because of its association with fossil fuels. That decision cost them… $15 million.

Daily Mail reported, “Ms. Rinehart’s mining company Hancock Prospecting issued a scathing response as it withdrew its $15 million sponsorship offer. ‘Hancock and its executive chairman Mrs. Rinehart consider that it is unnecessary for sports organizations to be used as the vehicle for social or political causes,’ the company said.” 

Gina Reinhart is leading the way on pushing back against the progressive’s woke ideas. If they don’t want that sponsorship money, they don’t have to have it. I am sure Reinhart can find a grateful sport or league to sponsor with those funds. The most ironic element of this story is that the netball team screaming the loudest about the sponsorship is named “The Diamonds.” 

The Spectator Australia put it beautifully, “There is a certain irony in the fact that the women’s elite netball team, the Diamonds, is named after extremely valuable compressed coal. Perhaps they would prefer to rename themselves the Lithium Batteries instead.” For taking her donation back and not bowing to the woke enviros, Gina Reinhart is a PTF Energy Hero of 2022.