Silk slams Rinehart "kamikaze mission" A bid by Gina Rinehart's children to appoint someone from outside the family to manage a multibillion dollar trust fund is a "kamikaze mission," a court has heard. John Hancock and Bianca Rinehart allege their mother acted "deceitfully" and with "gross dishonesty" in her dealings with the family's $5 billion trust fund. She has denied those claims, but agreed to bow out as trustee for the fund. The family feud has been playing out in the NSW Supreme Court, where counsel for Bianca Rinehart and John Hancock faced off on Monday against lawyers for their sister Ginia Rinehart, mother Gina Rinehart and the family business Hancock Prospecting (HPPL) as the parties work to appoint a replacement trustee. Every suggestion made so far for a new trustee - including Bianca Rinehart, Mr Hancock and independent trustees - has been scuppered. On Monday, Gina Rinehart's barrister Noel Hutley SC said the matriarch wanted a "lineal descendant" to take the role so as not to jeopardise a lucrative joint venture between HPPL and mining giant Rio Tinto. An agreement between these two companies reportedly stipulates that only Rinehart family members may hold shares in HPPL, which is part-owned by the trust. "My client does not say that the appointment of a non-lineal trustee will as a matter of moral certainty ... endanger the provisions of the clause," Mr Hutley said. Rather, we say it well may do - with potentially adverse consequences. The barrister for HPPL, David Studdy SC, was less measured in his assessment. "What appears to be some sort of kamikaze mission on the part of the plaintiffs in appointing a non-family member should not be allowed or promoted," he told the court. If the parties cannot agree, Judge Paul Brereton may be left to appoint a trustee.