The Australian position

Hancock Prospecting files a report with United States regulators every quarter because it holds more than US$100 million in American shares. Read against the calendar of the war the United States and Israel opened against Iran on 28 February 2026, those filings describe a private portfolio that grew heavier in defence contractors, gold and, in the second quarter, SpaceX, over the same months the Australian government was tallying what the same war would do to its own accounts.

The public ledger runs on a separate but parallel track. The Commonwealth forecast a A$38 billion lift in export income from the war, considered and then abandoned a new levy on the gas exporters who gained most from it, and instead cut the fuel excise, a package the Budget costed at A$2.9 billion.

Both ledgers are lawful. Hancock’s trades are disclosed under US securities law, and nothing in the record examined for this article suggests otherwise. What connects them here is proximity: overlapping dates, and a set of company names that recur in Rinehart’s own filings and in accounts trading in the president’s name.

01The filer

United States securities law requires any investor holding more than US$100 million in US-listed shares to disclose the full portfolio every quarter on a Form 13F. That is the rule that puts Rinehart’s buying and selling on the public record ¹.

The quarter that set the baseline was built around American technology and mining names close to US policy. In the June 2025 quarter, Hancock lifted its stake in Donald Trump’s Trump Media and Technology Group by 67 per cent, a position then worth about US$4.5 million, inside a US portfolio worth about US$3.1 billion. Hancock also held a 7.8 per cent stake in MP Materials, valued at more than US$1 billion after the US Defense Department deal, along with Lynas, Teck, Hudbay, NexGen, Nvidia and Dell ². Rinehart had celebrated Donald Trump’s election-night win at Mar-a-Lago in November 2024, and has advocated his agenda for Australia ².

That was the position she held when the United States and Israel opened their war on Iran on 28 February 2026 ³.

02The first quarter of the war

Hancock’s next disclosure, covering January to March 2026 and filed in May, shows the change the war brought. In March, after the strikes had already begun, Hancock added CrowdStrike, L3Harris, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and RTX, part of what Reuters reported as a US$133 million shift toward defence stocks and gold ⁴.

The same quarter, Hancock added the gold miner Newmont, bought a 6.3 per cent stake in Rare Earths Americas, lifted its Hudbay position by about 10 per cent and sold its entire holding in SQM. By the end of March its US portfolio was worth about US$3.3 billion, with the Invesco QQQ Trust and MP Materials together making up 47 per cent of the total weighting ⁴.

03The second quarter

The June quarter, filed on 14 and 15 August, went further. Hancock bought 8 million shares of SpaceX during the quarter, worth US$1.37 billion at 30 June and her single largest US holding; it doubled its Trump Media stake in the same three months; it held about US$260 million in an S&P 500 exchange traded fund; and it increased its defence and energy holdings again. The full US portfolio reached US$5.71 billion across 42 positions, up 72 per cent on the quarter. Hancock had disclosed in June only ‘a significant investment’ tied to SpaceX’s 12 June initial public offering, without a figure ¹.

In the weeks before the SpaceX purchase, Hancock spent US$130 million on Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, RTX and L3Harris. SpaceX itself priced its shares at US$135 and closed its first day of trading at US$160.95. Hancock’s chief executive, Garry Korte, said: ‘SpaceX is years ahead in launch capability, and critically, satellite communications.’ Rinehart’s net worth was reported at US$32.4 billion; she is 72 ⁵.

Every one of these trades sits inside a regulatory filing. Nothing in the record suggests they are unlawful, and this desk makes no such claim: the question here is what else was happening, in the same country, on the same calendar.

04The party

Rinehart’s role in Australian politics runs on a separate, but overlapping, timeline. Reuters reported that she donated a Cirrus G7 aircraft worth about A$1.5 million to One Nation, and that two executives of her own companies, Hancock Agriculture chief executive Adam Giles and Hancock Energy executive director Ian Plimer, each donated A$500,000 to the party. She hosted multiple events a week aimed at converting Liberal Party donors to One Nation, including dinners priced at A$15,000 a seat, and arranged a fundraiser that culminated in a March 2026 visit to Mar-a-Lago. She flew Hanson and other One Nation figures on her Gulfstream G700 and other private aircraft about 20 times, including at least once to Florida. Her fortune was put at about A$40 billion. She had previously given Peter Dutton private flights before the 2025 election. A spokesperson’s statement criticised green energy spending and immigration policy ⁶.

Hanson and Barnaby Joyce billed taxpayers for their own travel to fundraising and donor events aboard The World, the residential cruise ship on which Rinehart owns a penthouse, according to Guardian Australia reporting carried by Crikey ⁷.

05The same names

Article 1 of this case set out a separate, American record: trades in accounts bearing the president’s own name. Read next to Hancock’s filings, a small number of company names recur in both.

This desk assembled the table below, from separate public filings. No document read for this article states that any of these purchases are connected.

No filing, report or letter connects these purchases to one another. This table is this desk’s own reading of separate public records: Hancock’s SEC filings and the disclosures of accounts held in the president’s name.

Correction, 7 October 2026. This section previously carried a fourth column, headed “Defence fund”, and sentences linking the table to a report about the defence secretary that article 1 of this case has removed (see its correction of the same date). That report rested on unnamed sources alone. No primary document establishes it; the letters from members of Congress that followed rest on the same report. Under this station’s method an adverse claim resting on an anonymous source alone is cut. The column, the sentences that relied on it and reference ¹⁰ have been removed; the other columns are unchanged.

06The Commonwealth’s ledger

While Hancock was buying, the Commonwealth was tallying what the same war would do to its own books, and weighing, then dropping, a way to capture some of the gain.

On 20 March 2026, the Prime Minister’s department asked Treasury to model a new levy on gas companies, along with further reform of the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax and other corporate tax changes. ‘Energy producers should not benefit from high international prices at the expense of domestic customers,’ the department said. Gas companies made about A$100 billion in windfall profits during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Greens leader Larissa Waters said Middle East earnings would be ‘many multiples’ higher: ‘Millions of Australians are doing it tough, and these rich corporations should not get a free ride.’ The week before, Labor, the Coalition and One Nation had together voted down a Greens amendment for a gas levy. Chalmers said: ‘Our task is not just to respond to shocks, but to position Australia to succeed through them.’ ¹¹

Ten days later, on 30 March 2026, the government halved the fuel excise, 26.3 cents a litre, effective from 1 April, as crude oil passed US$116 a barrel. ‘We understand the cost pressures for people are very real as the impact of the war on the other side of the world plays out right here,’ Albanese said. Australia imports about 80 per cent of its refined fuel; petrol had risen 8 per cent and diesel 10 per cent in the week to 25 March, more than 500 service stations ran short amid panic buying, and the country held 39 days of petrol, 30 of diesel and 30 of jet fuel in reserve. The heavy vehicle charge was suspended for three months ¹².

Correction, 29 September 2026. This article gave the cost of the fuel excise cut as A$2.5 billion, in the subtitle, the introduction, the fact box, the table, the key facts, the diagram and its description, the note on reference ¹³, and the 10 September desk record. That figure was a press report’s, and this desk could not trace it to a source, so it has been replaced throughout with the A$2.9 billion at which the 12 May 2026 Budget costed the enlarged package ¹⁹.

A Senate inquiry into gas taxation, initiated by the Greens and chaired by Senator Steph Hodgkins-May, opened hearings on 21 April 2026, reporting ahead of the 12 May budget. Its proposals ranged from a flat 25 per cent tax on gas exports to a higher Petroleum Resource Rent Tax on windfall profits. The chief executives of Woodside, Santos, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell all declined to appear, sending other executives instead; Hodgkins-May said they were ‘hiding’. Industry put its own tax and royalty payments at about A$21.9 billion for 2024-25. Industry Minister Tim Ayres said: ‘The best thing to do is for us to work on those issues carefully with the industry and make announcements when the time is right.’ Albanese pledged that existing gas contracts would not be affected ¹⁴.

On 10 May 2026, the Prime Minister killed off both the windfall tax and the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax changes, citing the risk of upsetting the trading partners Australia relies on for fuel. The tax had raised A$1.42 billion in 2024-25 and was forecast in December at A$1.5 billion for 2025-26, with ‘a bit of an upgrade’ expected in the budget. ‘I know that people would like us to go further but there are good reasons to prioritise fuel supply and gas reservation,’ Chalmers said. The cross-party Senate committee recommended the government revisit the issue once the conflict ends, without setting a date; the government adopted an east coast gas reservation policy instead, which Chalmers called ‘reform not revenue’ ¹⁵.

The scale of what was being weighed became clearer on 3 July 2026, when the Department of Industry, Science and Resources forecast a A$38 billion, or US$26 billion, lift in export income because of the war, with resources exports rising almost 3 per cent to A$416 billion in the year to June 2027. Liquefied natural gas, the product at the centre of the dropped levy, was the single biggest beneficiary, with about A$20 billion of the extra revenue. The forecast assumed disruption ending by the close of June, with a further A$7 billion if it ran through August. The department had forecast a fall as recently as December, and had withheld its March report for uncertainty ¹⁶.

07Where it stands

On 28 July 2026, Treasury told Chalmers that ‘economic risks from the continuation of the war in the Middle East are increasing’. The May budget’s own scenario had oil peaking at US$200 a barrel in September, with headline inflation of about 7.25 per cent under it. The fuel discount was about 16 cents a litre for July after the three-month halving; the government put A$4 million toward a feasibility study for a refinery at Karratha. ‘From an economic point of view, a proper and permanent end to the war can’t come soon enough,’ Chalmers said. ‘The longer war in the Middle East goes on the greater the impact on Australia will be,’ Albanese said. No decision had been made on extending the fuel discount beyond 2 August ¹⁷.

As at 9 September 2026, Brent crude was trading above US$100 a barrel ¹⁸. The Senate committee’s recommendation to revisit the dropped windfall levy once the war ends carries no date and remains unresolved; this desk records it as open, not as a date to watch.

Both ledgers are lawful. What connects them is proximity, timing and scale, not a finding.

If it’s a rort, we cover it.