‘There has been consternation’: Rinehart gets naming rights at children’s hospital after $5m gift

OpinionMining magnate Gina Rinehart donates a lot of cash. Australia’s richest person has forked out $1.2 million for Australian swimmers, $900,000 for the conservative group Advance Australia, and made many donations to Pauline Hanson (the latest this week: an $8 million office block for One Nation’s new headquarters).Her latest philanthropic gesture: a major cash donation towards a major western Sydney hospital complex set up to treat the sickest of children with complex, chronic conditions. An almighty good cause, but this one comes with some strings attached. The yet-to-be-officially-open Kookaburra Centre within Westmead Hospital will now be called the Rinehart Kookaburra Centre.Gina Rinehart will soon have a children’s hospital centre named after her.AAPIMAGEThe state government first promised $40 million to the centre in 2025. But Rinehart’s donation came earlier, during a 2023 fundraiser for the Sydney Children’s Hospital Foundation. Any donations of $5 million or more are granted naming rights. And Rinehart donated $5 million.The renaming has worried some doctors in Westmead, who have told CBD they were concerned Rinehart’s close association with Hanson’s One Nation would upset the western Sydney community, made up of the very people Hanson has spent years targeting.“There has been consternation amongst the senior staff about Rinehart’s name,” one doctor told CBD. “To whitewash anti-immigrant sentiment espoused by One Nation is a bit rich in the middle of the most diverse community in the city.”In a lengthy statement, a spokesperson for Rinehart said the facility was “desperately needed” because of a more than 50 per cent jump in the number of kids requiring care for chronic or complex medical conditions. They said the centre wouldn’t be possible without Rinehart’s gift.“Children’s health should not be politicised,” her spokesperson said. “If any of these critics would like to match Mrs Rinehart’s $5 million, we’re sure the foundation would welcome it. So would we.”And what of a Labor government accepting donations from One Nation’s biggest donor? Health Minister Ryan Park said he was grateful for Rinehart’s generosity.“The community can be assured that they have a health minister who makes decisions based on what delivers the best health outcomes for our children, not based on political alignment,” he said.Parliamentary perksBefore Labor swept to power in 2023, then-opposition leader Chris Minns famously kept his staff’s offices bare, free of anything that might make them too comfortable to lose sight of the end goal: government.The opposition might do well to remember the tactic. New parliamentary papers reveal the opposition asked at budget estimates why lactose-free milk wasn’t available at NSW Parliament House’s multiple cafes and dining rooms (it is now) and whether there was any chance of getting a reformer Pilates machine in the parliamentary gym.Sadly for opposition members and staffers keen to get a quick session in while attempting to save their party from destruction at the hands of One Nation, staff told them a machine would not pass health and safety controls at the unsupervised facility.More pressing, to our mind, were questions submitted by Greens MLC Abigail Boyd about long-promised changes to parliament’s security passes for lobbyists. Parliamentary staff said rules on who gets access to the building’s closed-off areas will soon be updated to include “clearer eligibility and sponsorship requirements”.Richard White’s AI ‘gift’It was only in May this year that billionaire WiseTech co-founder Richard White fronted investors at the Macquarie Australia conference and flaunted the company’s ability to train AI agents to do the work of staff in just 15 minutes.Later that month, WiseTech management clashed with staff over the company’s handling of some 2000 job cuts as part of an “AI transformation” plan. So it’s little surprise to hear staff get twitchy every time “AI” gets a mention in White’s memos.In his latest missive, White could barely contain his excitement over an “AI-enhanced” early education jingle created by one of his children for a high school project.“This is [a] little digital early childhood learning gift from my family to yours – we could not get AI to build any of the standard nursery rhymes for [my child’s] school project as they block anything that has been commercialised,” White generously wrote in a note to staff last week, seen by CBD. “However, the family innovated their way around this and created an ABC song that is something many people thing [sic] is very fun and educational.“The song and video is so good and the song is so catchy that I think we share the love and give it to you all to see if your children love it as much as we do,” he wrote.Who needs copyright law reform when you’ve got innovators like this? White’s spokesperson declined to comment.Get the day’s breaking news, entertainment ideas and a long read to enjoy. Sign up to receive our Evening Edition newsletter.Anthony Segaert is the Parramatta bureau chief at The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously an urban affairs reporter.Connect via X or email.John Buckley is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.From our partners