J.F. Moyes, Hancock and Wright (self-published, 1973), pp. 34-36, ch. 5.
With thanks to Gina Rinehart of ANDEV.
More info at LangHancock.info and GinaRinehart.info.

Traditionally Western Australians buy only two newspapers — the only two available to them. The West Australian in the morning and the Daily News on the way home.

But there are people — and their number is growing — who realise that more than the Nullarbor Plain separates the West from the East. There’s also a communications gap which results, largely, from the West Australian Newspapers’ comfortable monopoly.

Neither The Australian nor the Australian Financial Review arrives in time to compete with the West — they’re not on sale until around lunchtime. But their readership is growing as more and more people become increasingly aware that the West tells them only what it feels they should know.

Take the Minsec business, for instance.

The West Australian, on January 25, 1972 reported a Press conference given by the official liquidator of Minsec, Mr J.H. Jamison. The West reported:

He (Jamison) asked unsecured creditors to be patient till Robe River’s new iron reserve totals were disclosed — which he expected within three months …

“When the ore reserve position is settled a sale may be possible at a price in excess of $1.15 a share.”

Readers of the West could be excused if they read this to mean that Robe River was re-assessing its reserves. Only if they read The Australian or the Australian Financial Review would they know that Robe River was going to get ADDITIONAL reserves.

The Australian reported:

Mr Jamison is pinning his hopes on getting $1.15 for the Robe share, and he bases this figure on the expectation the Robe River venture will be awarded new iron ore reserves within the next few months.

The Australian Financial Review reported:

Mr Jamison told reporters he would ask creditors to be patient until the company got the new reserves.

“I expect to hear about these reserves within three months,” he said.

“This is not based on just a thought of mine, but on information gleaned from proper sources — naturally one cannot anticipate a Cabinet Minister’s decision.”

Maybe this was just another instance of bad reporting by the West Australian. But people who watch these things say that the West is often guilty of indifferent reporting — or whatever it is. And maybe there is no connection with the fact that Hancock and Wright own a Sunday newspaper and could, by using their iron royalties, perhaps compete in the daily newspaper field.

Take another example. On December 3, 1971, the West carried a banner headline on its front page, “Court: Hanwright used mafia tactics.”

The story of Court’s attack on Hancock and Wright occupied 28 inches on the front page and continued with 27 inches on page 10. A total of 55 inches.

A week later the Premier (Mr Tonkin) said in the Legislative Assembly, “there was no known evidence in any Government department of mafia-like tactics having been used against the former Premier or any Ministers in the former Government.”

Tonkin’s statement appeared on page 13 and it occupied only six inches.

And apparently the West didn’t believe Mr Tonkin. A few days later, in a leading article, it said: “The State Government has evaded its responsibilities in deciding against appointing a royal commission to investigate allegations that the mining partners Lang Hancock and Peter Wright had used standover tactics and intimidation in their dealings with the previous Government.”

In the article the West did admit that:

It is surprising that the Leader of the Opposition, Sir David Brand, and some of his former Ministers were opposed to a royal commission …

It is astonishing that the Brand Government did not have the whole matter thoroughly investigated when it was in office.

Its failure to do so is no reason why the Tonkin Government should sweep the matter under the carpet. It should think again. On one hand the rights and responsibilities of Government are involved; on the other, the reputation of two internationally known men …

One wonders, if the West was so concerned about the “reputation of two internationally known men”, why Mr Tonkin’s denial of their mafia-like tactics didn’t receive the same prominence in the West as Mr Court’s original and unsupported allegation.

One wonders, too, why other statements in the Legislative Assembly failed to find room in the West. Here, for the record, are a few, taken from Hansard:

Mr Grayden (Lib. South Perth): Has the Minister (Mines Minister May) experienced mafia-like tactics from Hancock and Wright?

Mr May: Definitely not.

Mr Young (Lib. Wembley): I am not making this speech on behalf of the Leader of the Oppositon. My own belief is that the inquiry should be made on all facets.

Mr Graham (Deputy Premier): Including whether the Deputy Leader of the Opposition threatened overseas firms that if they held talks with Hancock and Wright they would be investigated too?

Mr Young (Lib. Wembley): The last Government did everything possible to get Hancock and Wright to the table.

Mr Graham (Deputy Premier): Are you sure of that. For months the Minister (Court) could not even talk to them.

None of this appeared in the West.

An article in Nation in 1969 explained:

W.A. Newspapers has always been sceptical and uninterested in the colossal growth in the State’s North-west. This stems from an official news attitude within the organisation that has been expressed as: “What the average housewife in Perth doesn’t understand, we don’t print.”

In 1969 Hancock and Wright began publication of the Independent, a Sunday newspaper. A major reason for the partners moving into the publishing business was one which Nation included in its May 1969 article:

The trigger that set off the Hanwright train of thought of establishing a newspaper was remote from the world of printer’s ink. Mr Hancock, a station owner near the present Mount Tom Price operations, was once the operations manager for Australian Blue Asbestos, Colonial Sugar Refining’s operating company at the Wittenoom Gorge asbestos mine. When CSR closed the mine as uneconomic in 1966, Hanwright bought the mine, the town and the equipment for an undisclosed price, believed to be around $1,600,000 and announced plans to reopen the mine for iron.

Hanwright proposed to build a railway, port facilities and beneficiation plant. A journalist, Lloyd Marshall, working for W.A. Newspapers’ evening daily, the Daily News reported and commented on this signficant development.

Mr Marshall was summoned to the office of W.A. Newspapers’ chairman of directors, Mr S.J.F. Hocking, to be told that there was no iron at Wittenoom. Mr Marshall came from an old-established Western Australian literary family, he had done extensive work on developments in the north-west, and many of his view coincided with those of Mr Hancock.

Mr Hocking, who also runs the Kalgoorlie Miner in the Goldfields, is said to have had what he believed to be reliable information from a geologist that the iron potential of Wittenoom was nil.

Mr Marshall told Mr Hancock of his employers’ views, and this was apparently the straw which broke Mr Hancock’s toleration.

Later, when Mr Marshall announced his resignation, he was given an hour to clear his desk and told never to be seen in the building again.

Hanwright’s Independent is, as yet, no threat to Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday Times and, of course, it does not yet compete with the Melbourne Herald-owned West Australian or Daily News.

But Hanwright have said that the Independent will, one day, become a daily. This prospect of competition does not enhance the Hanwright partners’ popularity with the newspaper Establishment. But it has given them a voice, even though it’s cost about $2 million to date to do so.