Rinehart Pledges Cash Bonuses for Australian Commonwealth Games Medallists

Australia’s richest person has announced cash bonuses of between $10,000 and $30,000 for swimmers who win medals at the 2026 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

Gina Rinehart attends the Australian 2024 Paris Paralympic Swimming squad announcement at Brisbane Aquatic Centre in Brisbane, Australia, on June 14, 2024. Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

Mining magnate Gina Rinehart has announced additional cash bonuses for Australian swimmers who win medals at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.

The games, which run from July 23 to Aug. 2, will be held across several venues in Scotland’s biggest city.

A total of 256 Australian athletes will compete across 10 sports.

Australian swimmers who win a gold medal in an individual event will take home a $20,000 (US$14,000) bonus each, a silver medal will earn $15,000 and bronze $10,000.

Any individual swimmer who breaks a world record in the pool in Glasgow will receive a $30,000 bonus.

In 2018, Australian swimmers scored 28 gold medals at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, before winning 25 gold medals in 2022.

Athletes who win multiple medals will be rewarded for each and every medal earned, Rinehart said, noting there was “something very uplifting” about seeing Australians on the podium after a win.

“These bonuses are a way of Australia saying thank you and showing the appreciation our athletes deserve for bringing our country such a sense of pride and achievement,” she said in a statement.

“Given the size of our population, we punch well above our weight on the world stage.”

Rinehart said the games were important because they were often a stepping stone to the Olympics.

The announcement comes after Rinehart helped welcome the first homeless military veterans to the Ben Roberts-Smith Beach Houses in Perth.

The facility is part of Rinehart’s plan to spend $200 million ($US138 million) provide housing for around 6,000 homeless Australian veterans, and named after Ben Roberts-Smith, a highly decorated former Special Air Service soldier who has been charged with war crimes.

Roberts-Smith’s parents Len Roberts-Smith and Sue Roberts-Smith were present at the opening of the Perth facility, saying it made them proud to see their son’s name on the building.

“Our son has been through so much, and our family knows deeply that the challenges faced by veterans and their loved ones do not end when their service does. In many ways, it just begins,” they said in a statement.

“For many veterans, the hardest battles come long after they return home, and projects like this show them they have not been forgotten.”

Last month, Rinehart, through the Rinehart Medical Foundation and Hancock Iron Ore, donated a new Pilatus PC-12 PRO aircraft to the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Also in June, Hancock Prospecting announced it had committed around $50 million to Lumitron Technologies, a company developing X-ray imaging and radiation therapy technology that can be used in both mining and healthcare.

The investment will support the commercialisation of Lumitron’s HyperVIEW platform, which could deliver ultra-high-resolution X-rays.