The maid and the magnate's daughter

By GREG ANSLEY

More than a quarter of a century after it began, and a decade since the death of the founding actor, Australia's longest-running real-life soap opera this week added a surprise divorce to a tale of revenge that has years to run.

One-time Filipino maid Rose Porteous, just days after being cleared of hounding mining magnate husband Lang Hancock to his grave, filed for divorce from William Porteous, a suave old-school Perth businessman and Hancock intimate she had married within five months of her late partner's death.

On Friday last week Coroner Alastair Hope had concluded Western Australia's longest inquest by finding that the bizarre tale of murder spun by Hancock's daughter, Gina Rinehart, lacked a scrap of credibility.

While Rinehart spoke tersely of a possible appeal to reporters outside the court, Rose was on the other side of town, veiled and dressed in white and accompanied by a herd of invited media, offering a brief prayer of thanks at St Marys Cathedral, where she had farewelled Hancock in the black comedy that his death became.

On Tuesday Rose drove to the Perth Family Court to file for divorce from Porteous, a man of outstanding stamina and loyalty who had endured not only a decade of bitter litigation but also a very public life as appendage to an eccentric who thrived as almost a caricature of herself.

"Rose is a fighter and she's a tough girl and she always knew she was in the right," Porteous said after Coroner Hope delivered his verdict, which Rose did not attend. "As she always said, her only crime was to marry a rich man."

For her part, Rose was already preparing to dump Porteous. She confided as much to Sydney Morning Herald reporter Robert Wainwright at a private dinner last Saturday night. "I have lived the life of a virgin for the last six years," she said. "I am a broken woman. The femme fatale in me has died."

This is not a good time for Rose to think about throwing in the towel.

Gina Rinehart, as tough as her father, is preparing to slip on the knuckledusters for yet another round of litigation against Rose that has cost at least $A8 million ($9.62 million) so far, and is certain to cost a great deal more before it ends. No one has any idea when that might be - and if the femme fatale inside the previously irrepressible Rose has indeed died, these proceedings will be complex and unleavened by the outlandish antics of a woman who at this stage appears sad and lonely.

Still, Rose has been there before, turning to amphetamines in periods of despair and beating addiction to bounce back with flare against a relentless foe.

Rose's future includes a raft of civil actions brought by Rinehart to strip her stepmother of the wealth she inherited from Hancock, counterclaims Rose has initiated, and separate litigation involving the Hancock mining millions.

In the 1950s Hancock discovered the world's largest deposit of iron ore in the north of Western Australia, establishing the giant Hammersley Iron group with partner Peter Wright and living a very private life with wife Hope and daughter Gina, who grew up living and breathing ore and mining.

Within days of Hope's death from cancer in 1983 Rose, newly divorced and fresh off the boat from the Philippines, became Hancock's housekeeper. Two years later they became man and wife. The marriage split father from daughter. Within four months Gina was removed as director of the key family company, Hancock Prospecting, opening an unremitting war between the two women that deepened as Hancock shed his reclusive nature, built Rose the vast Prix d'Amour mansion in Perth, and tottered into a socialite dotage.

Hancock's final days in 1992 were a tragi-comedy, with alienation between husband and wife, reconciliation between father and daughter, a last-minute change of will disinheriting Rose, furious threats and counter-threats, claims of foul play, and a final, sad, battle for his body and right of burial.

While Rose, with new husband Porteous, was cleared of murder, and the first inquest confirmed death from natural causes, the battle was only beginning. Rose had millions in personal gifts, but had lost the rivers of dollars flowing from the mines to Rinehart.

In 1993 Rose launched a challenge to Hancock's deathbed will, claiming her late husband was mentally unsound, directly attacked Rinehart with allegations of conspiracy and fraud and successfully defeated Rinehart's bid to have the claim struck out.

Rinehart counter-attacked with a bid to claw back everything Rose had been left, including Prix d'Amour, seeking $A20 million in damages and $A24 million in interest. She lost, again. In 1999, stinging from these defeats, Rinehart won a new inquest into Hancock's death after an impassioned plea on 60 Minutes and promises of evidence of foul play by Rose. The inquest that opened in April last year descended into farce.

With public shenanigans outside, proceedings inside bounced around Rinehart's central claim that Rose set out to nag, harass and bully her husband to death.

Rinehart produced witnesses claiming outlandish plots to kill Hancock by hitman, poison, voodoo and even hurling his wheelchair downhill; Rose responded with outrageous statements, photo calls with her three colour-co-ordinated poodles, and an eccentric public life.

She held garage sales, announced plans to tear down Prix d'Amour and replace it with luxury apartments, glittered through socialite parties, and flashed thighs and panties at charity fashion parades that raised thousands, but lost $A9 in every $A10 to expenses.

Last week, Coroner Hope delivered his verdict that there was not the slightest evidence of murder and that the key witnesses - paid more than $A400,000 by Rinehart to appear - lacked all credibility. While Rinehart considers what most legal commentators believe would be a doomed appeal, the real action is already in train in the Perth Supreme Court.

Rinehart is claiming two buildings in Sydney worth $A15 million, which she alleges were given under duress to Rose by Hancock, supported by a separate claim for $A5 million by Max Donnelly, the trustee for Hancocks estate, which was placed in bankruptcy in 1999.

Rose in turn is challenging actions by Donnelly, suing one of Rinehart's lawyers for releasing confidential documents to the media, and pursuing conspiracy proceedings against Rinehart.

Rose claims that Rinehart arranged for former Hancock Prospecting director Gary Schwab to convince a mentally incapable Hancock to sign a deed two weeks before his death, removing his vast mining royalties from his now-bankrupt personal estate and diverting them to the family companies controlled by Rinehart.

She also claims that Rinehart deprived her of entitlements under the will by restructuring the family companies. Rinehart has other weighty matters on her plate: a $A200 million claim against BHP over the purchase of Hancock's McCamey's Monster iron ore deposit, and the defence of another, unrelated, bid for Hancock Prospecting assets by the heirs of Hancock's former partner.

It is still wild in the west.