Jacqueline Minney

Laing O’Rourke

Jacqueline Minney is a Yamatji Malgana woman from Shark Bay in Western Australia.

As a proud Aboriginal woman, Jacqueline has many strong motivators – to continue to assist our communities to thrive, to be part of the movement to reduce racism and to improve health, education and economic opportunities for all Aboriginal people. Jacqueline has worked within, led and advocated for the West Australian Aboriginal community all her life.

Jacqueline has held numerous leadership positions in Aboriginal communities and is a passionate advocate for diversion, inclusion and equitable Aboriginal involvement in all aspects of society. She is committed to working with and for Aboriginal people across Australia to facilitate conversations around culturally and economically appropriate land use and access for local and traditional communities.  Jacqueline has established a career working with businesses, all government stakeholders, local councils, training providers and Aboriginal communities to create opportunities for Aboriginal employment, participation and economic development. Beginning with her work at Rio Tinto as one of the first professionals in the commercial resource sector to begin developing strategic initiatives to engage and work with Aboriginal communities, Jacqueline has since helped countless organisations embed diversity and inclusion into daily business operations – with a specific (but by no means limited) focus on Aboriginal affairs. Jacqueline’s work in this area has encompassed developing Work Ready Training programs to prepare and facilitate Aboriginal employment and Economic Development programs to prepare and facilitate sustainable Aboriginal economic initiatives through to designing diversity policies to foster mutual respect and cultural appreciation in the workplace and educate staff at all levels about unconscious bias.

Of particular note in Jacqueline’s most recent role has been her ability to implement Laing O’Rourke’s Indigenous Development Strategy and establish their Executive Diversity Council with the MD as Chair whilst developing and implementing a National Aboriginal Employment Program across all Projects within Australia. Prior to Laing O’Rourke, Jacqueline established and managed a unique Aboriginal Affairs consultancy, Opportunities Without Boundaries (OWB), specialising in leading community consultation around native title and land use agreements, developing cultural appreciation initiatives, providing community economic development advancement and driving employment programs. Through OWB Jacqueline was able to advise and support hundreds of organisations in areas relating to Aboriginal business and economic development as well as cultural planning and land management. It has been Jacqueline’s experience that without cultural appreciation and community consultation, organisations can’t increase economic development that positively affect Aboriginal employment and retention. Without economic security, Aboriginal people struggle to achieve home ownership. As such, employment and housing are fundamentally important to achieving stability, health and wellbeing for Aboriginal communities.

Throughout her career Jacqueline has proven ability to bring together resistant stakeholders with competing priorities and facilitate productive conversations, helping them find the common ground necessary to understand competing points of view and negotiate mutually beneficial outcomes. This includes reaching out to key corporate and government stakeholders in addition to Aboriginal communities, designing effective community consultation initiatives and creating opportunities for them to participate and take ownership of the issue at hand. Jacqueline fosters an inclusive working relationship with stakeholders from State, Federal and Local government focusing on raising cultural appreciation amongst all partners. This in turn leads to more collaborative discussions and encourages a sense of mutual respect and understanding. This is fundamentally important to progressing Aboriginal affairs in all facets of life, particularly in relation to economic development, health and education. Aboriginal culture, tradition, history and future wellbeing is inherently linked with the land, and as a member of Western Australian’s Aboriginal Land Trust (ALT), Jacqueline has tremendous responsibility of administering ALT land use in a fair, appropriate and sustainable manner.