Juukan Gorge’s fighting bill hits $1m
The traditional owners of the Juukan Gorge rock shelters spent more than $1m responding to Rio Tinto’s destruction of the ancient sites.
The traditional owners of the Juukan Gorge rock shelters spent more than $1m responding to Rio Tinto’s destruction of the ancient sites.
Accounts filed by the PKKP Aboriginal Corporation, the group representing the Puutu Kunti Kurrama people and the Pinikura people of Western Australia’s Pilbara region, have revealed that the group’s expenses in the first full financial year after Juukan Gorge’s detonation included more than $300,000 spent on securing the services of a lead negotiator and hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers.
The accounts also show that the number of registered members of the PKKP grew significantly after the event, from about 150 to more than 200.
The PKKP and Rio Tinto remain in negotiations over potential financial compensation for the episode, which sparked a global outcry and prompted the sacking of senior Rio Tinto executives, including chief executive JS Jacques. The head of the National Native Title Council, Jamie Lowe, has previously said the compensation from Rio to the PKKP over the destruction could ultimately reach $250m.
The accounts noted that the additional costs associated with the PKKP’s Juukan Gorge response are being covered by Rio Tinto under a funding agreement put in place less than three months after the blasting of the caves in 2020.
The documents show that Rio Tinto gave just over $2m to the PKKP as part of the “co-management and remediation” agreement between the two groups.
“The corporation entered into a funding agreement with Hamersley Iron Pty Ltd on the 17 August, 2020, to support the remediation and moratorium on Juukan Gorge, to address the moral obligation of Rio Tinto to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama people and to support the repairing and sustaining of a meaningful relationship between Rio Tinto and PKKPAC for the benefit of the PKKP community,” the PKKP said in its financial statements.
“Negotiations remain ongoing between PKKPAC and Rio Tinto, the terms of which remain confidential.”
The accounts show that the PKKP spent more than $325,000 on legal costs related to Juukan Gorge, as well as almost $85,000 on media and communication expenses and just under $70,000 on associated travel costs. Some $113,840 was spent on “external administration costs” and $137,482 on heritage remediation.
The main source of revenue for the PKKP remains the group’s charitable trust, which administers the funds generated as a result of the PKKP’s earlier agreements for Rio Tinto to mine portions of its native title lands.
The PKKP received $3.1m from the trust last financial year, down from $5.3m a year earlier.
The blasting of the Juukan Gorge rock shelters in May 2020 prompted a firestorm of criticism towards Rio Tinto that continues to be felt today.
Artefacts such as charcoal and animal bone fragments recovered from archaeological digs at the rock shelters had shown the caves had been occupied as far back as 46,000 years ago.
Rio Tinto had secured legal approval to mine the caves as part of an expansion of its Brockman iron ore mine under Western Australia’s controversial section 18 mechanism.
A subsequent federal parliamentary inquiry into the incident ended in a host of recommendations, including a bipartisan push for a federal takeover of Aboriginal heritage matters.
Western Australia late last year announced an overhaul of the state’s heritage laws, but those have been criticised by several Indigenous groups.
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