Netball Australia and the Australian Netball Players’ Association are in urgent talks following issues being raised by Diamonds athletes over their new uniform sponsor, Hancock Prospecting.

The mining and agriculture company, owned by Australian magnate, Gina Rinehart, has recently been announced to partner Australia’s national netball team, the Diamonds.

The deal was set to begin during the Constellation Cup series between the Diamonds and New Zealand’s Silver Ferns, with the company’s logo to feature on the Australian uniforms, however, the team wore an old strip isntead.

Reported issues include the company’s claims that climate change is not a man-made phenomenon, as well as comments in 1984, by Hancock Prospecting founder, and Rinehart’s father, Lang Hancock that Indigenous Australians should be sterilised to ‘breed them out’.

Fox Sports reports, Diamonds captain, and sports environment alliance ambassador, Sharni Norder, has addressed the playing group and publicly spoken out about arrangement.

Commenting on the dispute, Norder said: “This is a company that doesn’t suit Netball Australia’s values.”

“We’ve always stood up for social justice, we’ve always been anti-gambling, no smoking … and there were, and are, other avenues of sponsorship.

“Lang Hancock’s past and what he said in regard to Indigenous people is just not suitable for Australian sport … This is not a respectful way to act and even if Donnell wasn’t in the team, we must do better,” she said.

The deal has been seen as a lifeline for Australian netball’s governing body, that recorded a loss of AUD$4.4 million in 2021, with the new deal initially set to run until 2025 and worth AUD$15 million.

Commenting on the stalling of their deal, Hancock Prospecting said in a statement: ‘Hancock has positive agreements with all the native title holders in the areas we operate in, providing very significant royalty payments to the traditional owners in all our mining areas, well in excess of $300 million in the last seven years alone.’