The ‘long work’ ahead – building the knowledge and capacity of investors on First Nations peoples’ rights
By Min Wah Voon, Program Manager at RIAA
On 24 May 2020, Rio Tinto destroyed 46,000-year-old caves at Juukan Gorge – a place of personal, community, national and international significance. One year on, investors are working with First Nations peoples and organisations to increase First Nations voices in responsible investment and sustainable finance and ensure our investments respect and protect First Nations peoples’ rights and self-determination.
“Oi oi oi oi ngala pitja kulila tjumaku! Come here, listen to this story…” So began the RI Australia 2021 conference, with a keynote by Kado Muir, Ngalia Traditional Owner and co-Chair of the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance.
“What do you know about Aboriginal Australia?” Kado asks, before inviting us virtually into his beloved Country in the eastern Goldfields region of Western Australia.
Kado shows us a sacred ceremonial site of the Ngalia people. “Ordinarily you don’t show this, but in eighteen months that place may no longer exist,” he explained.
One year on from the Juukan Gorge disaster, what do we, as responsible investors, know?
There have been many Juukans since Juukan. This is a risk for investors.
Like many Traditional Owners, Kado is fighting to protect his Country from mining applications that threaten its significant cultural heritage places and environment. “Juukan is not an aberration for us…there have been many Juukans since Juukan”, he notes.
Kado points out he is not opposed to mining, nor are the Traditional Owners of the Pilbara generally. But they do not accept, as we should not, that the loss of ancient culture and heritage is the price we pay.
As much was concluded in the interim report of the Parliamentary inquiry into Juukan Gorge, Never Again. The report identifies major shortcomings in state and federal legislation and highlights how the Traditional Owners were let down by Rio Tinto and state and federal governments.
That Juukan Gorge occurred in a system of failings is a grave concern to Australian and overseas investors (see, for example, $14 trillion investor coalition puts Australia’s miners on notice over Indigenous rights). Investors care because the case for respecting Indigenous peoples’ rights in corporate affairs is both overwhelmingly moral and fundamentally financial.
In its submission to the public consultation of the review of the WA Aboriginal Heritage Act, industry superannuation fund, HESTA, explains the risks for investors caused by “inadequate cultural heritage management and systemic inequalities faced by Indigenous communities at the negotiating table with companies and in aspects of heritage legislation.”
“There’s a lot we already know that just shouldn’t be tolerated,” says Mary Delahunty, Head of Impact, HESTA, speaking at RI Australia 2021.
Investors have a critical role to play.
We saw this with the influence investors wielded to force Rio Tinto to take full accountability, leading to the departures of its CEO and two senior executives, and later, its chair. We saw it again with the massive protest vote by investors at Rio Tinto’s AGM against executive pay plans.
The Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura People, the Traditional Owners of Juukan, welcomed the protest vote and said, “We are heartened and not surprised by the position taken by a number of shareholders.”
More broadly, the role and responsibility of investors and the finance sector to support the rights of Indigenous peoples to self-determination and free, prior and informed consent is highlighted in the Australian Sustainable Finance Initiative (ASFI) roadmap. Launched in December 2020, this is an unprecedented industry-driven plan that includes several recommendations specifically related to First Peoples’ self-determination. This includes the establishment of an industry-funded, Indigenous-led First Peoples Financial Services Office that could help address some of the gaps that led to the Juukan disaster.
We must collaborate with First Nations peoples to increase their voices in responsible investment and sustainable finance.
A panel at RI Australia 2021 discussed the response of the responsible investment community one year on from the Juukan Gorge disaster.
“Juukan Gorge and the murder of George Floyd in the US acted as significant triggers of consciousness among Australians on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, the darkness of systemic racism, and what this means for our society,” notes Alan Dayeh, Principal at Point Advisory. Shortly after Alan helped establish, and now chairs, RIAA’s First Nations Peoples’ Rights Working Group.
The working group listened to First Nations advisers and organisations to develop seven objectives, which begin with collaborating with First Nations peoples to increase their voices in our sector.
Since then, the working group has convened First Nations-led panel sessions for the responsible investment sector. Some key themes that have emerged include the importance of history, dispossession, truth-telling, educating ourselves, First Peoples’ voices, culture and trust.
Importantly RIAA members and First Nations organisations, like First Australians Capital and Indigenous Business Australia, and First Nations people working in the finance sector, have joined our working group.
Leah Armstrong, a Torres Strait Islander and Managing Director at First Australians Capital, advises, “It is critical to understand and acknowledge the power dynamics that underpin investment decision-making processes.” She points to a recent article that highlights why and how impact investors need to share power, not just capital. Indigenous-led intermediaries that have trusted relationships and lived experience with communities have a critical role to play.
We need challenging conversations and to learn from one another to be effective stewards.
In May 2021 we held our first leaders meeting of the First Nations Heritage Protection Alliance and RIAA in Sydney. Leaders attended from the Alliance, the National Native Title Council, NSW Aboriginal Land Council and the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, RIAA, Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Aberdeen Standard Investments, HESTA, ChristianSuper and Regnan.
“It was a great opportunity to get together around the table to share learnings and teach each other,” Kado said.
“We appreciate the understanding demonstrated by the investment community that destruction of cultural heritage is against Australia’s international human rights commitments, and we are heartened to know that investors see that current practices in this regard are unsustainable.”
Danielle Welsh-Rose, ESG Investment Director at Aberdeen Standard Investments said the meeting “felt like an important moment in time for the investor community.”
“The day felt like two very different worlds coming together,” she observed, “yet there is a commonality as investors are stewards of capital and First Nations peoples are stewards of land.”
Danielle notes a tremendous opportunity for investors to benefit from the expertise and knowledge of the Alliance. She points out, as investors, we need all relevant information, especially what’s happening on the ground, to assess risks and “do our job properly as stewards.”
The ‘long work’ of addressing the system and building the knowledge and capacity of investors.
Ultimately, First Nations peoples in Australia want meaningful legislative reform at the Commonwealth and state level to ensure Juukan does not happen again, and want the finance sector’s support. As noted in HESTA’s submission to the WA Bill, this is fundamentally what is required also for investor certainty in the long run.
Addressing the systemic failings is ‘long work’, notes Mary Delahunty.
In parallel, RIAA is working with First Nations leaders and organisations to build the knowledge and capacity of investors to respect and protect First Nations peoples’ rights.
RIAA’s Human Rights Working Group – Corporate Engagement subgroup has released a draft Investor Toolkit – Human rights focus on Indigenous peoples’ rights and cultural heritage protection, which is now available for review and feedback.
Michelle Cameron, Account Director and Sustainability lead (Pacific) at Refinitiv and Chair of the subgroup, says the toolkit “provides practical guidance to the investment community on appropriate engagement questions for use across all sectors, to inform investors’ assessments of a company’s management of cultural heritage and relationships with Indigenous partners more broadly.”
RIAA’s working group is also now exploring with the Alliance and the Global Compact Network Australia how we can translate Dhawura Ngilan: A vision for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage in Australia and the Best Practice Standards in Indigenous cultural heritage management and legislation[1] into practical standards for the corporate and investor sector.
First Nations peoples in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand have been fighting systemic injustices arising from colonisation and dispossession for over two and a half centuries.
Investors and the finance sector have much to learn and do to collaborate with First Nations peoples to address these failures.
Together we have started.
[1] These standards have been developed and endorsed by the Chairs of Australia’s national, state and territory Indigenous heritage bodies, with support from peak bodies representing every major land council and native title representative body in Australia.
Min Wah Voon has 15 years’ experience working on sustainable development and human rights, with a strong interest in private sector engagement. Prior to RIAA, she was a researcher for the Australian Conservation Foundation and a consultant to the International Women’s Development Agency. Before this, she worked for many years with Oxfam, the Red Cross, the World Food Programme, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN, on a range of programs across Asia, the Pacific and in Washington, DC.
At RIAA Min Wah is responsible for ensuring that RIAA’s activities are aligned with RIAA’s strategic plan and responsive to important urgent, social, environmental and economic challenges. Responsibilities include developing and supporting RIAA’s thematic work through managing RIAA’s working groups, strategic partnerships and other initiatives.