Basketball legend Andrew Gaze has slammed millionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart for failing to condemn her father’s past comments about Indigenous Australians.
The fallout of a $15 million Netball Australia partnership with Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting stems from comments made by Gina’s father, Lang Hancock, in the 1980s.
Hancock Prospecting backed out on the lucrative partnership on Saturday, leaving the sporting organisation on the brink of financial ruin.
Indigenous player Donnell Wallam was said to be uncomfortable wearing a uniform with the company’s logo after Hancock made the offensive comments in the 1984 documentary Couldn’t be Fairer, eight years before his death.
“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,” he said at the time.
“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.”
Now, Andrew Gaze has come out swinging against Rinehart, calling for her to distance herself from the damaging comments.
“She (Gina Rinehart) could have apologised for her father’s comments, distanced herself from them and told us that she doesn’t believe those things. Instead, she pulled her money out,” he said.
“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’.”
“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.”
While a string of right-wing politicians have called out the netball team for being ungrateful, everyday Aussies have wondered why Rinehart is staying silent.
“If I can be held accountable for the actions of every South Sudanese person in Australia, then Gina Rinehart can acknowledge the actions of the man she inherited her fortune from,” wrote Melbourne-based South Sudanese artist, Atong Atem.
“It would amount to ABSOLUTELY nothing without action. Literally folks are asking her to do good PR via empty gesture but it’s only fair.”
Image credits: Getty Images
