Indigenous blast apology kickstarts transparent change

Rio Tinto ‘absolutely’ committed to being transparent about why and how it blew up an Indigenous heritage site.

The Rio boss said the mining major had reshaped its approach to dealing with Indigenous heritage sites. Picture by Ryan Osland

Rio Tinto chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques says the mining giant is “absolutely” committed to being transparent about the reasons for its decision to blow up an Indigenous heritage site adjacent to one of its Pilbara mines, and is already acting to ensure the disaster cannot happen again.

Rio’s decision to allow blasting on top of the 46,000-year-old rock shelters in Juukan Gorge sparked outrage across the globe and trashed the company’s reputation for its dealings with traditional owners. After a ham-fisted early response to the crisis, Rio has promised to make public a board-led review into the decision-making that led up to the blast, but still faces pressure.

“Not everything has gone well in this half, and we are very sorry for the pain we have caused the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (people),” Mr Jacques said, when delivering Rio’s half-year result on Wednesday.

“I had the chance to talk to the PKKP direct, to hear from their board and present my personal apologies. I also reiterated our absolute commitment to understand what happened so we can ensure the destruction of national sites of significance … never happens again.”

Mr Jacques confirmed Rio would lodge its submission on Friday to a Parliamentary inquiry into the company’s decision to destroy the heritage sites at its Brockman mine, and said he would appear next week at the hearings to answer questions about how the disaster was allowed to happen.

The Rio boss said the mining major had reshaped its approach to dealing with Indigenous heritage sites.

“We have changed our model of delegation of decision making in the Pilbara in terms of those sites. We have established a project management office in order to make sure we have strong governance around what we’re doing across the Pilbara,” he said. “We are really sorry for what happened, and we are absolutely committed to understanding what happened, and to learn from it and to change to ensure this situation does not happen again.”