At least 109 BHP workers sexually harassed colleagues in a single year, mining company says

BHP’s Record Copper Profit Masks a Year of 113 Confirmed Sexual Harassment Cases

Wanderstayfinder.com – The world’s largest mining company announced its strongest annual result in years on Tuesday, posting a US$9.8 billion (A$13.8 billion) net profit that climbed nine percent year on year. Yet buried within the same annual report was a disclosure that 113 confirmed sexual harassment complaints were lodged against BHP employees during the 2025–26 financial year — the highest tally of verified cases since the company began tracking the figure in 2023. Of those, 109 perpetrators either had their employment terminated or chose to resign.

The coincidence of a record-earning quarter and a record number of workplace misconduct findings underscores a tension that has defined the Australian and global mining sector for years: enormous capital inflows into remote, male-dominated operations where oversight of interpersonal conduct has lagged far behind oversight of geological output.

What the Confirmed Cases Involved

BHP’s annual report, released Tuesday, specified that the majority of the 113 verified incidents centred on indecent touching, stalking, grooming behaviour, and sexually aggressive comments or jokes. An additional 104 complaints were received but never progressed to formal investigation, a step the company attributed to “insufficient information or the wishes of the impacted person.” No geographic breakdown of where the confirmed cases occurred was supplied, leaving readers unable to determine whether the incidents clustered at particular Australian, North American, or South American sites.

The company stated that all allegations are examined by an ethics unit structurally independent from day-to-day operations. It did not, however, detail how many of the 109 departures were voluntary resignations versus compulsory terminations, nor did it disclose whether any civil or criminal proceedings followed.

A Pattern Across the Industry

BHP’s figures do not exist in isolation. Multiple parliamentary inquiries and reports commissioned by the Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner have documented entrenched cultures of sexual assault, sexism, bullying, and racism across mining operations, with particular severity at remote projects where crews rotate in for weeks at a stretch. Female workers across the sector have increasingly spoken publicly about systemic harassment, physical violence, and retaliation after raising complaints.

Three separate class actions are now winding through Australian courts, naming BHP, Rio Tinto, and Fortescue as respondents. All three were filed by the law firm JGA Saddler and allege widespread sexual harassment, sexual violence, and sex discrimination at work sites. The pleadings contend that

“most women, if not all” working on remote sites have suffered some form of sexual harassment or sex discrimination.

The litigation, if it proceeds to trial, will test whether mining companies met their statutory duty to provide a safe workplace under anti-discrimination and workplace-health legislation, and whether the sheer remoteness of operations excuses a failure to monitor conduct between shifts.

Expert View: Why Remote Sites Are High-Risk Environments

Jodie Fox, an employment lawyer who specialises in workplace investigations and serves as a director at Worklogic, identified several structural features of mining projects that elevate risk for women. Isolated locations, rigid hierarchical reporting lines, and pronounced gender imbalance combine to create what she described as

“a perfect storm of risk for sexual harassment.”

Fox elaborated on the spatial compression inherent in camp-based work:

“In a lot of these places, the workplace and your place of accommodation and your place of socialising are all effectively in the one place.”

Her point is that when a worker’s office, bedroom, and social lounge occupy the same fenced compound, the informal boundaries that normally separate professional interaction from personal space dissolve. Employers, she noted, carry a non-delegable duty to prevent and eliminate sexual harassment wherever practicable, a duty that does not diminish simply because a site sits hundreds of kilometres from the nearest town.

Racial Harassment Disclosures

In the same annual report, BHP revealed that 22 individuals responsible for racial harassment had their employment ended or resigned during the 2025–26 year. The company did not specify which sites or which ethnic groups were affected, nor whether those incidents were reported through the same ethics channel as the sexual-harassment complaints.

The Copper Engine Behind the Numbers

The financial headline that accompanied the misconduct disclosures was driven almost entirely by copper. The red metal, a critical input for power grids, renewable-energy infrastructure, and AI datacentres, climbed to record prices above US$14,000 per metric ton this year. BHP described copper as

“the engine that is driving BHP’s growth”

— a phrase previously reserved for its still-robust iron-ore segment. The company projects global copper demand will expand from roughly 34 million metric tons this year to more than 50 million metric tons annually by 2050, and warned of a coming supply crunch if new mines are not brought online.

On the shareholder return front, BHP declared a US$0.99 (A$1.39) final dividend, lifting total full-year distributions to US$1.72 (A$2.42) per share — an increase of almost 60 percent over the prior year and the largest payout in four years.

What Comes Next

For the roughly 109 workers who left BHP’s payroll in the wake of confirmed harassment findings, the annual report offers no individual accountability narrative beyond the aggregate count. For the women who filed the 104 complaints that were never investigated, the company’s explanation — insufficient information or the complainant’s own preference — will likely draw scrutiny from the class-action plaintiffs’ lawyers and from regulators watching the sector. With copper prices at historic highs and demand forecasts pointing toward a structural shortage, the capital that flows into new remote projects will be enormous. Whether that capital is matched by commensurate investment in independent oversight, transparent reporting, and enforceable consequences for misconduct remains the central question the next annual report will answer — or fail to answer.