When Reconciliation Australia endorsed Rio Tinto’s second Reconciliation Action Plan in 2016, few would have imagined that just four years later the miner would be responsible for the destruction of what its own reports identified as a place of “the highest archaeological significance in Australia”.

At the time, Reconciliation Australia applauded Rio Tinto for being part of “an elite group of organisations” that had gone “beyond business as usual” and adopted reconciliation principles and practices at the highest levels of its decision making.