The disclosures by the Telegraph yesterday came as the intensely media-shy billionaire continues her battle with three of her four children for control of the Hope Margaret Hancock Trust, set up for their benefit by Hancock and which holds about 25 per cent of mining giant Hancock Prospecting. Rinehart is also battling major media companies over the right to report details of the case.
Now, Kickett has resurfaced with claims that again put the spotlight on Rinehart and the Hancock family.
They centre on Kickett, but also refer to Hancock's long-rumoured liaisons with a long string of women - white in Perth, indigenous in Western Australia's remote ore country - before his marriage to Rinehart's mother, second wife Hope Margaret Nicholas, in 1947.
About a decade ago the Geraldton Guardian, in a widely quoted article, reported Kickett's claims and noted: "It was common for white men to enter into relationships, consensual and otherwise, with Aboriginal women."
Kickett told the Telegraph she was one of eight children Hancock fathered out of wedlock, six of whom still lived.
She said he wanted to arrange a family reunion, including Hancock's grandchildren if not their mother.
In 2003 the West Australian reported that Hancock's grandson John had said he would support Kickett's efforts to prove her paternity by providing DNA.
Kickett claims that tests have proven Hancock was her father, but has not provided documentation.
Two years ago Porteous told the West Australian that Hancock had confirmed to her that Kickett was his daughter and that she had spent time at their Perth mansion, Prix D'Amour, until later losing contact.
Kickett was allegedly the daughter of a Filipino-Aboriginal mother hired from a Port Hedland hotel to become chef at Hancock's Mulga Downs station in WA's northern Pilbara region.
She said she remembered Hancock leading her around the property on a horse, and visiting her after her mother and stepfather moved with their family to Geraldton.
That life was cut brutally short when welfare officers, supported by police, raided the camp where they lived: "The officer grabbed my little brother and I jumped down and grabbed him. They chucked us in the back of the van and took us to the police station."
With her brothers Victor, Alan, and Malcolm - just 12 months old - Kickett was taken to a Perth orphanage where, the Telegraph said, "she endured cruelty she still can't talk about".
But she said Hancock remembered her. "I had shoes. I would get three or four, or sometimes 10 pairs of shoes, but I used to share it out to all the girls because they had nothing," she said.
Every third Sunday she was allowed out of the orphanage and visited wealthy friends of Hancock, and once, when she was about 12, spent a week at his palatial home.
"We used to play on the river. He used to flick water. Gina was in this big blessed pram. I used to get her out and put her in the water, just put her to soak."
Kickett said she did not know Hancock was her father until she was 35, but had later established contact with Rinehart's children. In the 1990s, John Rinehart had invited her to a family Christmas. "I just love them dearly. There's nothing I wouldn't do for them if I could - that includes Gina."
And Kickett told the Telegraph she was not after money: "There's none of this material gains or fortunate gains. All I wanted was to make that connection with him [Hancock] again."
