Agreement Hub

AMEC ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER EMPOWERMENT AWARD 2024 🏆 Congratulations to Thiess for their ‘Connect. Yarn. Grow:’ – Indigenous Employees Conference. As part of their 'Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP)', Thiess built connections, fostered a sense of belonging and enabled their leaders to gain better insights of the lived experiences of their Indigenous employees. As a result, a clear roadmap was created to facilitate a culturally safe workplace and help employees to attract, recruit, and retain Indigenous talent. #CelebratingIndustryExcellence #amecawards 👏👏

At Agreement Hub, we’re increasingly being asked by companies how they can be ‘best practice’ when working with their Aboriginal Corporation stakeholders.  While I don’t know what best practice is exactly, I know that it's more than handing out company branded merch at a barbecue. If a company gets the following foundations in place, then it’s in a good place to build on these foundations with the Aboriginal Corporation and the Traditional Owners:  1.        Honour your commitments: If you've agreed to something, do it.  Compliance with agreements and any outward facing policies is a good place to start. 2.        One point of contact: Aboriginal Corporations can be inundated with requests, particularly in busy areas, whether it be for surveys or negotiations. It can help if someone within the team has the responsibility to organise. 3.        Share opportunities: Let Aboriginal Corporations know about job openings or contracts that are coming up, especially if you're not obliged to.  The same goes for cultural awareness training, request (and pay for) training for your team. 4.        Get organised: Organise your company’s policies, agreements etc into a plan of some kind.  It doesn’t matter what you call it, it’s helpful to have one that is kept updated and that the team knows about.  For example, if your company has employment obligations, your HR team needs to know about them.  5.        Provide updates: Share regular updates on what you're doing, even if you don't have to because it demonstrates that you value the Aboriginal Corporations’ involvement and feedback. 6.  Respect the process:  Go through the front door.  Be mindful of how any community relations activities can impact the Aboriginal Corporation’s governance structures.  

With the right team and the right approach, negotiating a project agreement with Traditional Owners can be done in four meetings, as this case-study shows... Gerrit Goedecke K+S Salt Australia Agreement Hub

After 22 years and 82 major project agreements negotiated, I can confidently say agreement making with Traditional Owners – arguably your most important stakeholder if your industry operates on Country – is what I love. The complexity, the continuous learning, and of course, the benefits we achieve for all parties.   Depending on the terms negotiated, these can range from financial benefits, equity, co-management, scholarships, the creation of thriving businesses, ranger programs and preserving environments. It’s a privilege to be involved in these outcomes and a responsibility I don’t take lightly.   Which is why, on very rare occasions, I have taken the difficult decision to walk away from leading a negotiation if I believe the motivations of one or more parties are not ethically sound. I had to do so recently, and it led me to reflect on our values and our rules of engagement.   1. We’re not consultants whose clients give us a watch so that we can tell them the time. We prepare strategies that have been tested over decades of negotiating some of the highest stakes agreements across Australia. We offer these to clients in good faith and with the expectation that, if we are to lead the negotiation, our advice will be taken into consideration. 2. Agreement Hub insists on honest, respectful, and transparent communications with Traditional Owners and their representatives. We don’t play outdated negotiation games and we won’t be used as a shield for a company’s bad behaviour and disingenuous engagement with stakeholders. 3. Agreement Hub insists on going through the front door. We will not destabilise a Traditional Owner group’s representation. 4. If there is an important heritage site, Agreement Hub will advise to avoid it. 5. Agreement Hub will never waste the time of Traditional Owners. We provide all the information needed efficiently and won’t impose terms designed to boost the company’s credentials yet hold no value to Traditional Owners. 6. Agreement Hub doesn’t lead negotiations if a company is hiding behind legal advice. Good legal advice guides, not dictates, the agreements we make. Above all our focus is on delivering commercial outcomes and strengthening reputations.