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

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Mining 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.

The 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........

© The Sydney Morning Herald