Writing history, and re-writing history, that's the game plan of Gina Rinehart as she muscles her way onto the national media and political stage using her iron ore fortune.
Writing history, and re-writing history, that's the game plan of Gina Rinehart as she muscles her way onto the national media and political stage using her iron ore fortune.
Whether she will succeed with either aim is questionable because the heat in both kitchens is intense and while her money and business success makes her believe she is fireproof, she is not.
The first test of that observation is that Rinehart refuses to subject herself to a full-blown, no-holds-barred interview by independent journalists.
Her preference is to write both the questions and the answers in emailed form, which is a tactic she can get away with while playing on the sidelines, but not a sustainable policy as her profile and voice grow on critical issues such as tax rates in the mining industry.
Until now Rinehart has been seen as a modern-day equivalent of the poor little rich girl who inherited a troublesome estate from her late father, Lang Hancock, and an equally troublesome step-mother, Rose Porteous.
The legal battles between Rinehart and Porteous are legendary, and a good indication of the fighting qualities of the Hancock/Rinehart family, which older readers will remember from the time when Lang did battle with everyone from Prime Ministers down.
It was his inability to get his own way in mining and exploration matters which prompted Hancock, and his business partner, the late E.A. (Peter) Wright, to launch the Sunday Independent newspaper, and then a daily version.
It was also Hancock's anger with what he perceived to be anti-mining policies across Australia that led him to become a major financial supporter of the once dominant premier of Queensland, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, and later a funder of assorted right wing political causes.
Where Hancock went 40 years ago, so goes Rinehart today.
Back in the 1970s when anyone criticised Hancock, or what he stood for, you could expect a blast from the old man, either by 'phone, or in your face.
Today, Rinehart is using technology to deliver the same sort of blast. Critics are dismissed as ignorant, with the website of Hancock Prospecting becoming an essential visit for Rinehart watchers curious about her current target, and about her latest thoughts on the legacy of her father.
That, however, is where she gets into her first problem because while she lauds her father and praises his achievements she also points out that his estate was bankrupt when he died which begs the question as to just what sort of success was he?
Then there is the problem of becoming a player on the national media and political stage by becoming a major investor in the media, almost certainly to ensure a loud voice in the ongoing anti mining tax campaign, but without developing a public profile.
Perhaps Rinehart will be content to continue with her low profile media style, making the occasional cameo performance at public rallies as happened during the anti-tax campaign.
But, the louder her voice in the media, or on her own website, the bigger the target she becomes for her political opponents, and with her rapidly-growing fortune thanks to the resources boom she will be an easy target for the Australian Labor Party and other left-of-centre political parties.
That's when critics will begin to probe her version of her father's legacy, which she will hate, and her ideas of what Australia would look like under her vision of the future - which she will hate even more.
At some point, Rinehart will either have to come out into the open, or retreat behind her wall of money.
