"None of the plantiffs has displayed the degree of perseverance, work ethic, responsibility that would be required to administer the trust." She says they have a "history of personal conflict with one another" and with Gina Rinehart and did not have good relationships with the current executives of the trust which would be required to enable them to co-operate. She claims that, should her three siblings be allowed to take over, it would have a significant negative impact on the family's mining empire through ongoing distractions and hostility. Mrs Rinehart's mining company is almost a quarter owned by the trust. The other three-quarters are owned by Mrs Rinehart herself. Money for daughter to drop lawsuit: documents

The chief financial officer of the mining company owned by Mrs Rinehart offered one of her children a quarterly payment if she withdrew from the legal action against her mother, the newly released documents reveal. In her statement of claim, Bianca Rinehart say that, in an email on September 6, the chief financial officer of Hancock Prospecting, Jay Newby, told her that if she immediately withdrew from the legal action her mother would pay her a "quarterly distribution" and asked her to suggest an amount. The statement of claim alleges Mrs Rinehart "breached her duty to act honesty and in good faith; acted with gross indecency in her dealings with the beneficiaries of the Trust and acted deceitfully in her dealings with the beneficiaries of the Trust." Tax liability The children claim that Mrs Rinehart emailed her son and three daughters days before the trust was to vest in September, warning they each faced a potential capital gains tax liability of $100 million.

The iron ore magnate told them that, to avoid bankruptcy and financial ruin, they were to sign a new deed giving her long-term control over the trust, which was set up in 1988 by her father, the late Lang Hancock, with his four grandchildren as beneficiaries. The letter from Mrs Rinehart to her four children on September 3 also said: "It may however be reasonably arguable that personal development-wise it would be in the best interests of the beneficiaries to force them to go to work and reconsider their holidaying lifestyles and attitudes." The three children - other than Ginia who continues to support her mother - began urgent legal action seeking to remove their mother as trustee, alleging she had engaged in "serious misconduct". But they claim that, by then, Mrs Rinehart had already secretly changed the date at which they were to receive their share of the trust to 2068 - effectively denying them a share for 57 years. The children say Mrs Rinehart refused to release the financial advice - by PriceWaterhouseCoopers - upon which she based her claim that they would go bankrupt if they did not do what she asked.

They were allegedly refused access to other information about the trust, including cash-flow statements, tax returns and the current value of the beneficiaries' shareholdings. She also allegedly sought to place "illegitimate emotional and financial pressure on the plaintiffs" - effectively using her position as their mother to try to convince them to drop their claim and accept her demands to change the operation of the trust. Keep claim quiet: Barnaby Joyce The court documents also show that senior high-profile Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce allegedly attempted to convince the three Rinehart children to keep their claim out of the public eye, while Liberal MP Alby Schultz entreated them to drop their claim altogether. Their statements of claim say that Senator Joyce emailed Hope on September 11, 2011, saying that "newspapers and lawyers get people to say nasty things" and "stated that 'before it really gets out of hand, I would try to get it back in house and out of public view'".

Loading A week later, on September 19, Mr Schultz and his wife emailed Hope saying they had read with "much sadness" of the litigation against her mother, calling it a "horrific step" and asking her to consider dropping "this expensive and embarrassing legal action". Mrs Rinehart is Australia's richest person with an estimated wealth of $17.1 billion.