Juukan Gorge jury chief held Rio Tinto shares
The chairman of the committee that gave Rio Tinto approval to destroy the Juukan Gorge caves held shares in the mining giant.
The chairman of the independent committee which gave the green light for Rio Tinto to destroy the Juukan Gorge caves, a significant archaeological research site, held shares in the mining giant and did not recuse himself from the meeting that signed off on the contentious decision.
Minutes from the December 2013 meeting of the Aboriginal Cultural Material Committee, obtained by The Australian under Freedom of Information laws, show that then-chairman Gavin Fielding declared he had a “small” shareholding in Rio Tinto as the committee met to consider the company’s application.
“The committee agreed that the nature of the chair’s interest did not preclude him from deliberation of this item,” the meeting minutes said.
Mr Fielding — a former senior commissioner of the WA Industrial Relations Commission and a former deputy president of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission — also had family members working for Rio Tinto’s iron ore division during much of his time on the ACMC.
The employment of those family members was not documented in the meeting minutes.
The approval by the ACMC of Rio Tinto’s plans at that meeting paved the way for a final sign-off by the then-Aboriginal affairs minister Peter Collier on December 31, 2013.
The subsequent destruction of the caves — where Aboriginal artefacts dating back as far as 46,000 years had been recovered — in May this year set off a tsunami of controversy around Australia and the world, and on Friday prompted Rio Tinto to part ways with its chief executive, JS Jacques, iron ore boss Chris Salisbury and head of corporate affairs Simone Niven.
WA Greens MP Robin Chapple told The Australian Mr Fielding’s shareholding meant he should never have been involved in the assessment of Rio Tinto’s Juukan Gorge application. “It’s totally inappropriate on two levels,” he said.
“Firstly that you’ve got someone in there at the level who will benefit from being a shareholder, he shouldn’t have been there on that basis alone. And then you’ve got the other issue of how did the group that was there give him the permission to remain in the deliberations. That’s totally wrong.”
Approval of Rio Tinto’s plans for the gorge under WA’s section 18 legislation meant Rio Tinto had full legal authority to destroy the caves. That legislation does not include any right of appeal by Indigenous groups, even when, as with Juukan Gorge, new information comes to light about the significance of a heritage site.
The legislation is in the process of a major overhaul by WA’s Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Ben Wyatt, with rights of appeal for Indigenous groups to be among a host of changes.
Mr Fielding declined to comment when contacted by The Australian on Sunday.
Mr Chapple has long been critical of Mr Fielding’s presence in the ACMC, given what he said was Mr Fielding’s lack of experience in heritage issues.
He said the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage at that time was divided between those with direct heritage experience and those who were pushing for the smooth progress of industrial projects. “The department certainly was under huge pressure,” Mr Chapple said.
“The anthropologists and archaeologists just saw that whole process being trashed at that time, and many of them actually ended up leaving.”
Mr Fielding was awarded an Order of Australia in 2010 for his service to law and industrial relations. He is also the grand prior of the Australian arm of the Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem and a member of the international religious group’s grand magistral council.
He had previously come under fire from Mr Chapple over his perceived conflicts of interest because of his shareholding in BHP, which was also making section 18 applications through the ACMC.
A spokeswoman for Mr Wyatt said on Sunday that the potential conflict was a matter for the minister at the time to consider.
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