Hoodwinked. How BHP bulldozed a coal miner in court

The final maneuver by BHP and its partners against an injured coal miner in Goliath v David was to deprive him of money he did not have. Michael West reports after finally receiving the transcripts!

The extraordinary perversion of justice in the case of injured coal miner Simon Turner and mining giant BHP and 4 others continues apace. A class-action lawsuit is underway for underpaid coal workers.

The last one. Key points:

• BHP’s labor hire company, Chandler Macleod, submitted a costs claim to Turner.
• Having lost an interlocutor, Turner is attractive.
• MWM finally received the transcripts of the hearing on February 12 (we’re publishing the highlights below).
• The Federal Court’s transcription service went bankrupt (outsourced to VIQ, a foreign multinational; VIQ tried to demand almost $2,000 but still failed to provide documents three weeks later).
• Most of the documents were hidden by the judge
• The hearing on the suppression orders was postponed until April 10.
• Transcripts show Turner told the Court he was tricked into signing a fraudulent promissory note.
• Class action lawsuit ongoing for ordinary coal miners.

Background

Simon Turner, a coal miner at BHP’s Mt Arthur coal mine in the Hunter Valley, appeared as a plaintiff before Judge Needham in the Federal Court on 12 February 2026. It faced four interim applications filed by Chandler Macleod Group Limited (CMG), BHP Group Limited and related entities and the Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave Funding) Corporation.

Defendants moved that their claims be struck out and summarily dismissed.

Judge takes pity on BHP in case against injured coal miner

The crux of Turner’s case is that he is employed by Chandler Macleod Group Limited, as all his work-related documents show, but settlement agreements entered into on his behalf list a different organisation, Ready Workforce, as a subsidiary, as the employer.

In 2017, a Federal Circuit Court decision by Judge Altobelli found Chandler was the actual employer of paid workers at Mt Arthur.

Turner says what was done was fake.

In his decision on February 27, 2026, Judge Needham dismissed all of Turner’s claims, barred Turner from re-pledging his case, ordered the Petition to be removed from the Court docket, and issued sweeping suppression orders on nearly all of the filed materials.

The following six transcript passages reveal what happened in the courtroom.

“I didn’t know I had to present this evidence.”

The self-represented coal miner explained to the Court that he did not understand the procedural requirement for the evidence to be presented separately from his own statements, and the Judge refused to adjourn the case.

Turner: “The only reason I didn’t know was because I had to provide that evidence.”

The judge then discussed whether BHP and the defendants would consent to the evidence being admitted. They objected even though they had never seen it:

BHP lawyer Vanja Bulut: “I don’t know what they do or don’t disclose, because there is only one reference, for example at the first point of the payslips, and so I don’t know what the document discloses. So I’m not even aware of the relevance of the documents.”

Catherine Bebrick on behalf of Coal LSL: “… although I do not know exactly what this material is… my current view is that this information will not assist the Court in dealing with my client’s application.”

Why this matters: Three groups of corporate lawyers objected to a self-represented coal miner presenting his evidence unseen. Then the judge did not allow him to sue. His entire case was subsequently decided summarily, without any evidence being presented to the Court.

The hearing lasted less than three hours.

“Ready Labor Force was not a party to the title deed”

BHP’s own lawyer confirmed that the organization listed as Turner’s “employer” in the settlement document was not actually a party to the contract with BHP:

Ms. Bulut: “Ready Workforce was not a party to that deed… There is a reference in a statement that Ready Workforce is the employer, but it is not a party to the deed. The deed is a deed signed between my two clients and Mr. Turner.

Why this matters: The entity identified as Turner’s “employer” in the disclosures of the BHP settlement document – ​​Ready Workforce – was not even a party to this action. If the employer is misidentified in the statements, the entire material basis of the agreement may be false.

This admission was made in open court by the defendants’ own lawyers, but the Judge did not regard it as raising an issue worthy of trial.

Defense: “It doesn’t matter”

Chandler’s attorney ignores the fundamental question of employer identity, which determines what industrial award applies, what wages are paid, and what workers’ compensation system will cover an injured worker:

Ian Latham, for Chandler Macleod: “…there has already been some debate as to who of the two might be the employer. That doesn’t really matter, for reasons I’ll get to later.”

When pressed later, Latham repeats:

“Just regarding the last 10 minutes…it doesn’t matter who the employer is because both fall within the scope of discharge and title.

Turner’s response from the podium:

“Under an illegal occupation charge.”

Why this matters: The identity of the employer determines everything: what employment contract applies, what the legal minimum wage is, what workers’ compensation plan covers the worker, and how long service leave will accrue.

Chandler’s own lawyer told the Court that it “didn’t really matter”; It is noteworthy that the labor hire company took issue with the identity of its claimed employer.

“[They] put me under pressure

Turner told the Court that his own lawyers in the previous class action withheld documents and acted contrary to his direct instructions, including changing the named employer from Chandler Macleod to Ready Workforce:

Turner: “…the people who represented me in these matters put me under pressure and withheld documents. They also acted against my direct instructions. I now have all of this in written evidence.”

About what happened next to the Altobelli decision:

Turner: “…I kept telling Adero Law… that they had to file the Altobelli decision. I kept telling them that Ready Workforce was not my employer. They agreed… Adero agreed with me, that this file was registered with the Chandler Macleod Group, and then… somehow it was changed to Ready Workforce.”

Why this matters: Turner alleges that his former lawyers Adero Law, the firm behind one of Australia’s biggest class actions, admitted Chandler was the employer, then changed the named defendant to Ready Workforce against his instructions and settled on that basis.

I was deceived

The 2017 Altobelli decision, which found that CMG was the actual employer, was never filed with the class action court. These are allegations of serious professional misconduct that directly concern the validity of settlements.

Chandler’s lawyer also agrees that Adero Law should join

In a striking exchange, Chandler’s attorney acknowledges that if Turner’s allegations against his former attorneys are part of a valid lawsuit, those attorneys should be present at the trial:

J Needham: If there is a question as to the meaning of this document or whether this document should be reconsidered by this Court, should they be joined? Are these a necessary aspect of this trial?

Latham: I think, Your Honor, given what was said today, these… if the issues raised today were part of a final case, they would have to be consolidated. I don’t think there is any doubt about this.

Why this matters: The judge himself discussed whether Adero Law could join as a party. CMG’s own lawyer admitted that “without a doubt” they should have been. However, no decision was made to merge, no adjournment decision was made to allow this, and the case was rejected.

Recognizing that these attorneys were necessary parties, the attorney then successfully argued that the case should be dismissed without these parties.

Turner: They say they have no authority,

“yet they changed who the employer was”.

Turner explained that Coal LSL told the Court it had no authority to identify its employer but had retroactively changed its employer records from Chandler to Ready Workforce:

Turner: “They say they don’t have the authority to determine who the employer is, but they send me an email saying they have now changed who the employer they have listed is.”

“That was only 12 months ago. After everything that’s happened, this happened.”

Turner had previously detailed the extent of the discrepancy:

“… as in the email Sharife Rahmani of Coal LSL sent me saying they changed employer records to reflect Ready Workforce… Who gave them the authority to change those records to Ready Workforce and the whole time… Chandler Macleod Group ABN was the company that paid the tax the whole time.”

Why this matters: A Federal State legal authority responsible for coal miners’ long service leave records told the Federal Court it had no jurisdiction to identify Turner’s employer, even though it had retroactively changed that field in his records.

If the employer ID changes from Chandler to Ready Workforce following the class action, this raises the question of who instructed Coal LSL to make this change and why. Turner’s ATO records, pay slips, pension records and Federal Circuit Court decisions all say Chandler was the employer.

Suppression and judgment

On February 27, 2026, Judge Needham issued a decision dismissing all of Turner’s claims. Important orders were:

• The Original Application and Petition of Claims are set aside against CMG without any leave to repeat,
• Summary judgment entered for BHP and Coal LSL,
• It was decided to completely remove the petition from the Court file on the grounds that it constituted “abuse of process”.
• Sweeping suppression orders were granted for virtually all filed materials: the Pleading, Turner’s affidavit, defendants’ interlocutory motions, all submissions, and portions of the hearing transcript,
• The Source Application was ordered redacted.

As a result, Turner’s trial ended and almost all evidence of what happened was suppressed.

The hearing lasted less than three hours.

Turner was denied the opportunity to present his evidence.

No defense was made by any defendant.

wider picture

Turner’s case involves allegations of systematic misclassification by employers at one of Australia’s largest coal mines. If Chandler Macleod Group Limited is the real employer – as ATO records show, Judge Altobelli’s ruling in 2017, and Chandler’s own lawyer actually admitted at the hearing – then settlement deeds worth hundreds of thousands of dollars were built on a false foundation, a class action affecting nearly 800 workers was brought against the wrong organisation, and workers’ compensation claims were processed using fake employer data.

Turner is now appealing to the Full Court of the Federal Court. The application deadline is March 27, 2026.

And the Federal Court needs to do something about shoddy and overpriced transcription service. How can someone object or rely on evidence that is late, prohibitively expensive, and sometimes downright wrong?

Wild Accusations. Even BHP’s own evidence was silenced by the court