Hancock Prospecting was honoured to join rowers and their families and coaches for the Rower of the Year Awards on 5 December, an incredible evening made even more special by Rowing Australia’s Centenary Year. The night paid tribute to a century of athletes, coaches, volunteers, and supporters who have built a sport defined by grit, teamwork, and excellence.
As Patron of Rowing Australia, our Executive Chairman, Mrs Gina Rinehart AO has backed Australian rowing for many years. Her support helps athletes and programs across all pathways, from daily training and coaching to competition and performance on the Olympic stage, reflecting a simple belief: hard work and determination wins.
Our warmest congratulations to all award recipients and nominees. Together, you embody the high standards and patriotism to strive to present our country at your very best, high standards that have defined Australian Rowing for 100 years.
A special congratulations to Georgie Rowe the winner of the Gina Rinehart AO Rowing Leadership Award for 2025. This award recognises incredible dedication and contribution to rowing along with outstanding leadership, both on and off the water. An incredible achievement. Hancock prospecting was delighted to gift Georgie a brand-new Kidman country hat.
Please see the transcript below to read Mrs Rinehart’s speech, read out on the night by one of Hancock’s dedicated staff members, as well as pictures of Georgie wearing her iconic Australian hat.
Here’s to the next century of hard work, determination, and dedication.
Mrs Gina Rinehart AO Speech – Rowing Australia 100 years and Rower of the Year Awards
Good evening Her Excellency the Honourable Ms Sam Mostyn Governor General of the Commonwealth of Australia, rowers, rowers’ families and coaches, special guests and everyone.
As we celebrate not only the work and achievements of our rowers, we also celebrate a historic milestone—100 years of Rowing Australia. For a century, this organisation and our row coaches have fostered hard work, camaraderie, and the spirit of fair competition, helping to shape generations of remarkable Australians.
Rowing is a sport that demands teamwork, persistence and resilience—qualities that have stretched across our outback, across our defence personnel and veterans, and found a place in the heart of our nation’s character.
Tonight, as we recognise the dedication and success of our athletes, I want to especially encourage the young people in this room, and across our rowers everywhere, to stand resolutely for the traditional and outstanding values that have made Australia strong and have created a nation we can be proud of and love; hard work, mateship, courage, common sense, truth and patriotism.
Integral to these values, I want to highlight the importance of facts and truth. In both sport and life, it is essential to seek out the truth, to rely on facts, and not distort them. For instance, not that I’d ever suggest you’d do this, would it help you to distort your training row times, and pretend they were faster than they really are? Would it help you to say you trained in the gym for 50 minutes, when you only trained for 15? We know such distortion and avoidance of the truth, would do nothing to help us. Sticking to the facts and truth help us make good decisions, build trust, and ensure that our achievements are genuine, helping them to be enduring.
There are organisations for young people around the world that also champion these principles, such as Turning Point USA (please follow the link for more information https://tpusa.com/ ), formally led by the sadly late Charlie Kirk and now by his incredible young widow, Erika Kirk. Growing numbers of young Americans and others around the world now follow Turning Point, their mission is centred on promoting love of country, and personal values.
You also embody love of country, as you strive every day to represent our country to the very best of your ability.
I asked my 20-year-old granddaughter recently, at her 20th birthday just a few days ago, why is it people think the youth of today don’t have long attention spans, they can listen to podcasts that go on for 40 minutes, even hours.
She told me, sometimes we might feel isolated, even lonely, and podcasts are like being in a room where a conversation is happening, so we don’t feel so isolated or alone. Such as when studying alone at night, or when others may have gone out to a party, and you can’t go as you have homework left to do, such as long drives, train or plane trips by yourself.
I appreciated my granddaughter’s advice, as it was open and frank. Very, very, few people can go through life without feeling isolated or alone at times, maybe even depressed. And perhaps after the excitement and highs of an Olympics or Henley Royal regatta, which amazing highs can’t last, and you may be back home unpacking, in the kitchen or laundry far removed from such excitement, or perhaps you’re not feeling happy with how your rowing times went, maybe you too would find listening to Turning Points positive podcasts worth a try? I know I sure devour with relish, whatever I can of Elon Musk’s!
The values I have spoken to tonight, the importance of common sense, hard work, persistence, resilience, truth and facts are not just the foundation of great sporting teams—they are the foundation of the very best of our nation, and our history.
As you train hard and strive for excellence on the water, you are looked up to as ambassadors, both in sport and in life. Please be proud of our values, and help each other to never lose sight of the importance of representing Australia proudly and with honour.
Congratulations to all our award recipients and nominees. Thank you for inspiring us, and for carrying forward the proud legacy of Australia and Australian rowing
