Australia mines inquiry finds ‘prevalent’ sexual abuse of women

A Western Australian government inquiry has recommended establishing a sex offenders’ register to address “prevalent” sexual harassment and assault in the state’s mining industry.

The long-running inquiry was investigating abuse at “fly in/fly out” mining sites in remote parts of the Pilbara region, the lifeblood of the country’s iron ore industry where some of Australia’s largest companies including BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals Group operate.

The report, published by the state government on Thursday, found that the mining industry had not done enough to protect women working on the sites.

“Changing culture is never easy to achieve and extremely difficult to mandate. But this is a case where some of the richest and most powerful companies in Australia must move beyond careful statements of intent, and make their workplaces and their workers free from harm,” said Libby Mettam, the inquiry’s chair.

The report contained evidence from women in the mining industry that detailed a number of serious incidents described as “an appalling range of behaviours”.

One woman described how her supervisor had told her that he could make a safety incident “go away” if she had sex with him. Another said she had been knocked unconscious in her accommodation and woke up with her trousers and underpants around her ankles.

The report recommended that the state government should explore options to create a register to stop “habitual sexual harassment offenders” by maintaining their employment in the mining sector by swapping sites or changing companies.

Rio Tinto published its own investigation this year, reporting that 21 women had been raped or sexually assaulted on its sites within the past five years. That followed BHP’s submission to the inquiry that it had fired 48 workers for assault and harassment of women between 2019 and 2021.

The industry has moved to strengthen security and to tackle alcohol abuse at its fly-in sites to address the problem while introducing stricter reporting and governance programmes to encourage more reporting of bad behaviour.

Mettam agreed that large companies like Rio and BHP have committed to cracking down on sexual harassment and abuse but said that more needed to be done.

“We believe the failure to recognise what was happening in their workplaces is a sign of corporate failure that companies and the industry cannot avoid or downplay,” she said.

Simon Trott, head of Rio’s iron ore business, praised the “courage” of those who shared their stories for the report and said the company would “closely study” its recommendations.

Jessica Farrell, an executive at BHP in Western Australia, said BHP has agreed to invest an additional A$300mn to tackle the problem. “Sexual assault and harassment have no place at BHP, the mining industry or anywhere in the community,” she said.

Elizabeth Gaines, chief executive of Fortescue Metals Group, said: “We acknowledge that some inappropriate behaviour still occurs”, adding that “we will continue to encourage our team members to call out inappropriate behaviour”.