Originally published by Jason Morrison and Ryan Keen of The Sunday Telegraph
09.08.2026
Mining magnate Gina Rinehart was left feeling “dehumanised” by a vile ABC segment allegedly encouraging her murder, it can be revealed, as calls mount to overhaul the public broadcaster’s editorial standards.
The billionaire’s Hancock Prospecting said the segment which the ABC left up for 25 days before removing it and apologising – “normalised violent torture” of women.
“We wait to see the long overdue changes to the ABC’s ‘editorial standards’,” the Hancock Prospecting statement on Saturday said.
“Such editorial standards need to stop sexual violence and torture-until-death episodes being shown or depicted in any form against any woman on the ABC, including under the pretence of satire or art or any other cloak.
“Satire needs to be funny. What the ABC approved to be aired for 25 days, in its violent torture-until-death content, was not,” the Hancock Prospecting statement said.
“The content shown on the ABC normalised violent torture against a woman till death, and dehumanised an Australian, such that she was ‘worthless and OK to be sexually tortured,’” the statement said, adding such content “should not be and must not be acceptable in our country”.
“This concept that a woman can be regarded as worthless, (even if she has contributed hugely to a country), so it’s OK to sexually torture her to death, is not a new concept. It is practised by terrorists and has been practised elsewhere, and must never be regarded as art, or acceptable in our country, even by the ABC.”
ABC managing director Hugh Marks apologised on Thursday for the Race Around The World segment and wiped it from ABC platforms, nearly four weeks after it aired on July 12.
Its removal came days after Ms Rinehart threatened legal action over the fictional French Revolution-style depiction of a violent attack.
It featured contestant Kate McGuinness describing a graphic fictional scenario: “Because when the revolution comes will you hide under the bed or will you know exactly how to shove a stick right up Gina Rinehart’s butthole, stirring it round, mixing her guts up nice and smooth, to make up one big sausage roll to make something out of nothing.”
An ABC Ombudsman probe found it did not breach standards relating to harm and offence but Mr Marks said the “ABC acknowledges the episode has fallen short of community expectations”.
Discussing former ABC chairman Maurice Newman said: “When you are actually encouraging people into sadism, murder, if that is in line with editorial policy, there is something wrong with editorial policy.”
Hancock Prospecting’s statement added: “The internal ABC Ombudsman’s decision that the ABC did not breach ABC editorial standards fails all Australian women and the millions of taxpayers who fund the ABC.”
It also called out ABC chair Kim Williams, deputy chair Lisa Caffery and the ABC board for “ongoing silence”.
Olympic swim legend Dawn Fraser, among the critics, said the segment made her “sick to the stomach”.
