An Aboriginal woman who believes she is Gina Rinehart’s niece is calling on Australia’s richest person to take a DNA test to prove their family connection.
Naydene Robinson, the daughter of Sella Robinson, who claimed she was fathered by Lang Hancock at Mulga Downs station in the 1930s, says she wants to meet Rinehart and “resolve any doubts” about her links to the Hancock family. Sella’s mother worked as a musterer and in domestic labour at Mulga Downs.
Robinson says she is hopeful that if the link can be established, Rinehart would agree to an “amicable” settlement that recognised her mother was Hancock’s child and Rinehart’s half-sister. She also wants Mulga Downs to be returned to the traditional owners.
“I ask [Hancock’s] daughter Mrs Georgina Rinehart to respectfully consider, recognise and accept us as his descendants as well, without bias or prejudice, for us to move forward,” Robinson said in a statement provided to Guardian Australia.
“If the DNA test results are compatible with either herself or her children’s and Sella’s children, then I would like to work with Mrs Rinehart on amicable terms to determine what is fair and just, for all the relevant parties involved towards achieving a favourable, respectful outcome for the descendants of Sella Tucker-Robinson, without animosity, malice or discrimination,” she said.
“We ask to not be regarded or known as ‘charity cases’.”
Robinson is calling for Mulga Downs station to be returned to the Banjima traditional owners, who have native title over the area, saying this had also been the wish of her mother before she died.
She says while the Banjima are recognised native title holders, they still face restrictions in being able to access the vast outback station that covers nearly 1m acres (400,000 hectares).
“It is rightfully [Banjima] country. It has always been their country, since time began, it’s been well documented and talked about,” Robinson said.
“We are the oldest people still living, practising and connected to our country. It’s national and international history, our history, that for at least 60,000 years, we were here, and today, we are still here.
“This is our country, It is in our songlines and stories.”
Hancock’s ‘furious’ letter
As part of the podcast series Gina, Guardian Australia has revealed that Lang Hancock sought ministerial intervention when Sella Robinson was removed from Mulga Downs station in the Pilbara in 1940. While there is no direct evidence that Hancock was her father, the concerns expressed by him lend weight to claims that Rinehart has Aboriginal half-sisters.
Another woman, Minnit Doris, who claimed to be Lang Hancock’s half-sister born to his father, George, was also abducted at the same time. The girls were removed from the station under government policies that created the stolen generations.
A trove of previously unreported government documents, obtained from the State Records Office of Western Australia, show that Hancock requested the children be returned to the station. In a letter to the WA minister for the north-west, he suggested they be swapped for other “starving” Aboriginal children.
“In the absence of the manager of this station the local police officer and Inspector … ran down and captured two half-caste children who were decently clothed and fed, and cruelly took them from their mothers, to be a burden on the State, despite the fact that they and their parents were fed, clothed and insured by us,” the October 1940 letter said.
“We would suggest that the two children be returned to us and two of the starving mites substituted.”
Hancock’s request was denied and Sella was taken to one of the largest Aboriginal missions in Western Australia, Moore River Native Settlement, where children from all around the state were incarcerated in poor conditions and often abused.
Rinehart has never publicly acknowledged the Robinson family, nor another woman, Hilda Kickett, as relatives. At the time the women made the claims in 1992, a Hancock family lawyer denied them, saying it “was not Lang’s style”.
“That wasn’t the kind of thing Lang Hancock would do,” he said. “I have spoken to young men who worked around Mulga Downs with Lang and I have spoken to confidants who say nothing like this was ever mentioned or rumoured,” the lawyer said after Hancock’s death.
Robinson said she is asking with “sincere respect” for Rinehart to acknowledge the history of her mother’s removal from the station and Hancock’s attempted intervention, saying the letter showed how “furious” he was.
“As descendants … knowing she was removed from her homelands and her families by force, we often wonder what the outcome would have been like if Sella had not been ‘kidnapped’ and had grown up and lived on Mulga Downs Station,” she said.
“Maybe, just maybe, her and her aunty Minnit Doris would have had shares, and rights in inheriting the property, and any other shares/stakes left to George Hancock and his son Langley.”
She speculates that the children might have received a mention in Hancock’s will, “if not for their cruel abduction, on that sad, mournful day from Mulga Downs Station”.
Robinson, who now lives in Perth, said that if Rinehart decided not to have a DNA test, she would “respect her decision”.
“However, for me to get peace of mind, and to carry out my late mother’s wishes, I invite any one of the Hancock/Rinehart children to come forward with compassion for one human being to another, and give their DNA for comparison,” she said.
“To determine if we are connected by blood.
“I understand all the legal work regarding Lang Hancock’s estate has been finalised through the legal system years ago. However I have hope.”
A spokesperson for Rinehart’s company, Hancock Prospecting, said it had an agreement in place with the Banjima people covering Mulga Downs and “complies fully with its obligations”.
He said the company, under Rinehart’s leadership, had given a large section of Mulga Downs to the Banjima for the Youngaleena community.
“And further, at the request of a non-Banjima community, similarly claiming long ties in the Mulga Downs area, [Rinehart] gave a further section of Mulga Downs to that community.
“We value our long-term relationship with the Banjima people and remain committed to working collaboratively in addition to positively for the Banjima people and their future generations, and in accordance with all legal and cultural obligations,” he said.
The spokesperson said most of the station now housed mineral tenements of various mining companies, together with related infrastructure.
‘It was a real sexual frontier’
The trove of documents also reveals government concerns about alleged sexual relationships between white men and Aboriginal women at Mulga Downs in the early 20th century and into the 1940s. Under section 46 of the state’s Native Administration Act, it was illegal for a “non-native” to have “sexual intercourse with any native who is not his wife or her husband”.
The correspondence claims the women, who mostly worked as domestic labour and lived in camps on the property, “must have been used by white men for the satisfaction of their sexual desires”.
The exploitation of Aboriginal women by white station workers was “rampant” across remote areas of Australia at the time, according to the University of Newcastle’s Prof Victoria Haskins, who has written extensively on Aboriginal women in domestic service and cross-cultural relationships.
“There was an understanding that Aboriginal women [on the stations] were just sexually available. It was a real sexual frontier.”
She said Aboriginal women in these situations had “no power to say no”.
“The power dynamic between white men and Aboriginal women was extremely uneven.
“‘Going up to the boss’s was probably well understood to be part of the work that was expected of you [as a domestic worker].
Robinson said she believes the history of Mulga Downs needs to be acknowledged as part of the truth-telling required for Australia to “grow and move forward”.
“We all should have an obligation to revisit our past history, and accept our past for what it is, in order to focus on reconciliation,” she said.
“It is a shared history. Australian history with two sides of the story, and then the facts, and finally the truth,” she said.
“It’s been a long time coming, and it’s long overdue.
“What is needed now is the due diligence, justice and empathy of all Australians to realise and come together and work together as a nation.”
Listen to the podcast Gina: The DNA request
Indigenous Australians can call 13YARN on 13 92 76 for information and crisis support; or call Lifeline on 13 11 14, Mensline on 1300 789 978 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636
