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recognised mining for leading the way on changing the gender
balance – but at less than 20% there’s so much more work to do.”
Atkins bemoaned the slow pace of change within the industry
regards women appointed to senior executive positions and
board roles.
“If you have diversity in the leadership of an organisation, it will
generate a momentum that will give you diversity throughout an
organisation,” Atkins said.
“If you have diversity at the table those conversations can be very
rich and you’re going to think long and hard about your decisions
and the unintended consequences of those, whether it’s safety,
financial, legal, social, environmental.”
Keren Paterson Paterson, one of the few women currently at the helm of a small-

cap mining company, said the time had come for the industry to
ESG is so broad that it’s going to bury safety in all the other embrace change and reap the benefits of having a truly diverse
information,” she said. workforce.
“In mining, especially underground mining, safety and risk are
pretty big-ticket items and if we don’t have enough focus on
those and we get distracted by all these other things that we’re
expected to report on and get assurance on, it’s potentially taking
organisational energy and resources away from key critical risks
that we can’t forget about it.”
Like Atkins, Keren Paterson studied to be a mining engineer and
enter the industry “with stars in my eyes thinking I was going to
change the world”. Now the founder and managing director of
potash hopeful Trigg Mining Ltd, she is determined to build mines
that “communities can be proud of”.
Alex Atkins
“It goes all the way back to when I was teenager, in fact, camping
with my parents and exploring abandoned mine sites, thinking
“What I’m really proud of at Trigg is developing a culture…
‘this is really great, but there must be a better way’,” Paterson said.
that has given us an opportunity as a small company to attract
“The only way I could change things was to be involved, so that’s
really fabulous talent that wouldn’t otherwise be there if we were
why I went into mining. My purpose is to build mines communities
exploring in ways like we used to explore,” Paterson said.
can be proud of. Trigg has very much been a purpose-driven
“Diversity attracts more diversity and creates that much more rich
company right from inception.”
conversation that Alex is talking about.”
All panellists agreed the industry must continue to address
The gender diversity conversation is somewhat different for
the gender imbalance and make the mining profession more
Perseus, which operates three gold mines in West Africa and is
welcoming for women, especially on the back of recent damning
about to start developing another in Sudan. Volich said while the
reports highlighting several cases of sexual harassment not
company faced challenges promoting women in the workforce,
taken seriously.
cultural diversity was still a priority.
Recent statistics from the MCA indicated female participation in
“At the corporate level and at the board level, we’re having the
the mining industry has climbed to record levels, rising from 19%
same conversation and asking the same questions, but I think
in November 2021 to 21% in February 2022.
something that’s a challenge for us is having those conversations
McCombe said improving gender diversity across all levels of
about our operations when women take quite a different role in
mining was a strategic issue for the sector and one that should
those societies and it’s not necessarily the same techniques and
not be taken lightly.
approaches that we use here [in Australia] to improving gender
“The industry has had a very challenging last few years with the balance,” she said.
revelations that have come to light around sexual harassment
“On the cultural diversity side, our main objective is to employ
and workplace culture,” he said. “It is absolutely not acceptable,
as many local people in our mines as possible. We have, at the
and we absolutely need to get more women in mining, particularly
moment, 95% local employment at all of our operations, and
in the leadership roles, but we can only do it if we ensure a
that’s really our priority to get as many local people benefiting
safe, attractive work environment for women and people of all
from those operations as we can. We’ve got a diverse range of
backgrounds.
expats, of course, but it’s really about benefiting the local people.”
“Whilst the industry has made some great gains over the last
few years collectively – the Workplace Gender Equality Agency
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