2 min readCanberraJun 19, 2012 02:07 PM IST
First published on: Jun 19, 2012 at 02:07 PM IST
Australia’s government said today it fears the country’s richest person Gina Rinehart plans to use her growing stake in a major newspaper publisher to push her own commercial agenda.
Rinehart,a mining magnate whom Forbes magazine estimated in March was worth USD 18 billion,is a vocal critic of the center-left government’s plan to impose a 30 per cent tax on the burgeoning profits of iron ore and coal miners from July 1.
She is also opposed to a 23 Australian dollar USD 23 tax that Australia’s worst industrial polluters will have to pay for every metric ton of carbon dioxide they emit from July 1.
Rinehart last week increased her stake in struggling Fairfax Media,Australia’s second biggest publishing company,from 12.6 per cent to 18.7 per cent.
Fairfax newspapers reported today that Rinehart,Fairfax’s largest shareholder,wants three seats on the Fairfax board of directors including the deputy chairman’s role plus the right to make significant editorial decisions.
Her reported demands are in conflict with traditional Fairfax board protocol that directors not interfere with editorial decisions and a charter of editorial independence that has been honored since 1992.
Rinehart could not be immediately contacted for comment today. But her friend John Singleton,a former Fairfax board member,told Australian Broadcasting Corp. that “editorial interference would have the made the papers more readable in the past.”
Acting Prime Minister Wayne Swan said it was clear that Rinehart and Singleton “reserve the right to impose their political views upon that particular newspaper chain.”
“That has very big implications for our democracy. I think we should all be very concerned at this turn of events,” he told reporters.
“She certainly has a commercial right to do what she has done,but it appears to be that she will go a step further,not respect the charter of independence and reserve her right to direct journalists with instruction that follow her commercial imperatives,” Swan said.
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