The CEO of a mining company that blew up a sacred Aboriginal heritage site has attended an Indigenous festival where tickets cost as much as $5,000.
Rio Tinto boss Kellie Parker is among the high-profile guests who has visited the Garma Festival on East Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory over the weekend.
Tickets are being sold for as much as $5,000 with the cheapest option being $1,650 which is only available to primary or high school students.
Ms Parker’s appearance comes more than three years after her company, which was run by Simon Thompson at the time, blew up a sacred site in May 2020.
The group is also falling short of the cultural heritage standards it set itself after the debacle three years ago.
The CEO of Rio Tinto, which blew up a sacred Aboriginal heritage site in WA in 2020, has paid $5,000 to attend an Indigenous festival in the Northern Territory. Rio’s chief executive Kellie Parker is pictured at the Garma Festival in the Northern Territory, Sunday, August 6, 2023
Rio Tinto boss Kellie Parker is among the high-profile guests who has visited the Garma Festival (pictured) on East Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory over the weekend
Rio’s turnover in 2022 was $55.5billion and it has donated $2million to back the Yes side in the upcoming Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum.
It was the second year in a row Ms Parker attended the Garma Festival – a gathering of leaders that counts the Prime Minister among its guests – that is held every August.
Ms Parker took over the reins at Rio in 2021 after the previous chairman Mr Thompson quit, accepting blame for the destruction of the 46,000 year-old Indigenous rock shelters at Juukan Gorge in May 2020.
But an independent report from consultants ERM found that in some instances Rio Tinto management did not meet expectations for cultural heritage standards.
The report – commissioned after the rock shelters at the Brockman 4 iron ore mine in the Pilbara were blown up – showed the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people were not properly consulted.
ERM consulting director Stefani Eagle said though there were some examples of good cultural heritage practice, Rio Tinto still needed to do better.
‘There are further improvements that are required to meet their internal standards and ensure all assets have appropriate foundations, underpinned by the principles of co-design,’ Ms Eagle said.
Ms Parker said the priority was to fix problems in Australia and then expand the new cultural model across the business worldwide in countries such as Peru, Mongolia and Madagascar.
Speaking at the festival on Saturday, Ms Parker said Rio Tinto was committed to cultural heritage protection after learning the lessons of the Pilbara disaster.
‘Some of the lessons that we learned around Juukan was not just to be legally right but to have further commitments with traditional owners that we’re doing the right thing,’ she said.
When the audit was released earlier this year, she told The West Australian that it highlighted ‘some good progress, in particular in Australia.’
It was the second year in a row Ms Parker attended the Garma Festival – a gathering of leaders that counts the Prime Minister among its guests – that is held every August
Ms Parker took over the reins at Rio in 2021 after the previous chairman Simon Thompson quit , accepting blame for the destruction of the 46,000 years old Indigenous rock shelters at Juukan Gorge (pictured) in Western Australia
‘The report gives us areas for further improvement across our global operations, and we will adopt all of its recommendations,’ she said.
The audit found 19 per cent of Rio Tinto’s assets were up to 20 years behind in their knowledge base and a quarter of its operations didn’t have a cultural heritage management plan.
‘Consequently, there is a risk that current and emerging impacts to cultural heritage are not being readily identified and/or appropriately managed,’ the report said.
It found resourcing at almost half of its sites did not have enough resources to deal with cultural heritage and 30 per cent of engagement activities and 50 per cent of grievances were not properly managed.
There was also a lack of management around restoring sites back to traditional habitats, the report said.
‘Although training is being rolled out at assets, the audit found that in a number of instances (22 per cent) the training does not incorporate information on asset specific cultural heritage values and appropriate management strategies.’
Rio was condemned around the world after the sacred site destruction, ultimately leading to a change to Australian law.
Introducing the bill to parliament last November, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek compared Rio’s actions to Islamist fundamentalists in Afghanistan.
‘When those beautiful Buddhas were destroyed by the Taliban, there was an international outcry,’ she said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a tweet that ‘Juukan Gorge, a site of huge significance to First Nations people, was destroyed’
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a tweet at the time that ‘Juukan Gorge, a site of huge significance to First Nations people, was destroyed two years ago.
‘But no laws were broken. It’s wrong. So we’re changing it.’
Rio Tinto is one of the most prominent corporate supporters backing a Yes vote in the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, donating $2million to the campaign.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton slammed the company for doing so.
‘There are a lot of CEOs and chairs who have very different conversations with you in private than what they say publicly,’ he said in July.
Ms Parker said Rio’s support for the Voice followed the ‘massive mistake’ at Juukan which had shown the company had ‘stopped listening’.
‘It is a deep lesson in how you listen with intent,’ she said. ‘And that is what the Voice is – it is listening.
‘It is listening to a minority voice that is deeply connected to country, and their culture, and deserves respect.’
The Garma Festival is a four-day long event that runs in the Northern Territory with tickets going for as much as $5,000
In her speech to the Garma Festival over the weekend, Ms Parker made it clear that Rio Tinto is working in cooperation with the local people.
She referred to how Rio had operated the nearby Gove mine since 2007, and its predecessors had done so for 40 years before that.
‘Later this decade, that chapter will come to an end, and the land will be handed back to the Traditional Owners so their connection can be re-established,’ she said.
‘As we prepare for the future beyond mining, I have seen a deepening of relationships between partners and stakeholders, built on respect and listening with intent.’
Ms Parker said all sides are working in partnership to ensure there is a strong future for the area and that 350 people are doing remediation work on the Gove site, where 900,000 trees will be planted over the next decade.
