BHP Group must commit to not damaging Aboriginal cultural sites as its expands its mining operations while a review of Australian heritage law is carried out, a shareholder group said in a resolution filed on Thursday.
The proposal comes before BHP’s financial results, due out next week, and after a government enquiry into how peer Rio Tinto legally destroyed caves that showed human habitation stretching back 46 000 years, as part of an iron ore mine expansion.
The moratorium on damaging culturally important sites would cut risk while reforms are considered, the shareholder group, the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR), said in a statement.