Rio chairman quits after cave blast row
RIo Tinto’s chairman will step down after admitting he was ‘ultimately accountable’ for the miner’s decision to blow up two 46,000-year-old Aboriginal caves.
Simon Thompson said he would leave the Anglo-Australian giant by its 2022 annual meetings, which are scheduled for next April and May.
Thompson, 61, has been chairman for three years and on the board for seven.
He has taken responsibility for Rio’s destruction of two sacred rock shelters last May to expand an iron ore mine – an act that provoked global outrage, prompted an Australian parliamentary inquiry and led to a management clear out.
Chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques and two other key executives were forced to resign last September.
The company was slammed not only for destroying the two sites in the Juuagenda. kan Gorge, Western Australia, but for bungling its response to the crisis.
It took Jacques two weeks to issue an apology and the board initially refused to sack anybody over the disaster.
Jacques was ultimately replaced by finance boss Jakob Stausholm on January 1. Thompson said yesterday: ‘As chairman, I am ultimately accountable for this tragic event.’
He added: ‘Throughout my seven years on the Rio Tinto board, I have endeavoured to promote a progressive environmental, social and governance While I am pleased with the progress we have made in many areas, the tragic events at Juukan Gorge are a source of personal sadness and deep regret, as well as being a clear breach of our values as a company.’
His announcement comes ahead of Rio’s 2021 annual meetings – at which some investors had already said they intended to vote against the re-election of more directors, which could have included Thompson. And it follows the news last week that former boss Jacques will receive a 20pc pay rise for 2020, totalling £7.2m, which has prompted even more backlash that the company is neglecting to take the Juukan Gorge issue seriously. Rio also said Michael L’Estrange, the board member who led the company’s inquiry into the Juukan Gorge explosions, would leave after this year’s annual meetings following surgery in February.
The explosions were legal under Western Australia’s heritage laws and the plans had been made in around 2014 – before Jacques joined as chief executive but in the same year Thompson joined the board. The two rock shelters showed evidence of being occupied for thousands of years by the local Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura people and archaeologists had told the company of their value.
Investors and Aboriginal groups welcomed Thompson’s resignation but Jamie Lowe, chief executive of Australia’s National Native Title Council, added that if Rio Tinto was serious about its commitment to be more respectful to local communities, it should appoint at least one Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander to the board.