David v Goliath. A coal miner v BHP. Epic court battle under suppression orders

A judge has lifted a gag order in the latest David v Goliath case between unemployed coal miner Simon Turner and The Big Australian BHP. Michael West reports.

Abraham Lincoln said, “A man who represents himself has a fool as a client.”

Lawyers love to quote these words; For obvious reasons. Fees. Judges, on the other hand, are reluctant to consider the unpleasant expectation of an ordinary commoner. Approaching the counter unlucky representation.

And as for the Scholar Friends at the Bar table, there would be no other Scholar Friends with them to share their witty remarks and test their fierce knowledge.

Fair enough. How boring would it be for a judge to explain the rules of evidence to an interloper? hello polloiAn ordinary citizen who doesn’t even speak his own language.

Allah bless. Yes, as they say, “the justice system is open to everyone, just like the Ritz Hotel”); but in practice it is very rare for plaintiffs to represent themselves.

And on a remote occasion – we have not heard of it in the higher courts – it would have been disastrous for a judge to make a decision against such an outsider, an unrepresented member of the proletariat – a mining giant accompanied by a foppish entourage of wigs and aprons.

Of course, such a plaintiff would cause a stampede of foolish plaintiffs in the courts. To crack themselves up. Without lawyers. Terrible!

Sorry plebeians who can’t separate their asses from their breasts a priori their res ipsa loquitur He tells the judge his feelings.

Actually, It doesn’t happen or it happens rarely.

David versus Goliaths. Lone coal miner battles BHP and partners in Court over massive wage theft

But in this rare example, Simon Turner v Chandler Macleod Group, BHP. BHP Mt Arthur Coal, Hunter Valley Energy Coal and Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Furlough Fund) Company – wow – there is. Or if Turner has found a lawyer and we’re not sure, the scales of justice will continue to tip in favor of BHP because of the resource mismatch. Think Dennis Denuto v The Crown.

So, in this rare instance, it would be very surprising if cross-examination came to light, given what we have seen of BHP’s poor industrial relations practices.

Promotional risks

The judge had already given a closure order to BHP. Details to come, but suffice it to say that this in no way tips the sacred scales of justice in favor of the oppressed.

Most likely BHP and its legal group will pay Turner to go and get it done.

Don’t risk publicity.

As the story linked above shows, there are some hairy details to this claim that the mining organization would hardly want tested in open court, and therefore would not want floating around in the public domain.

This whole sordid affair will need to be tightly coupled with an NDA (non-disclosure agreement), especially when there are thousands of other miners in similar circumstances who were duped by BHP, its numerous labor hire firms, lawyers and other collaborators.

There is also the thorny issue of thousands of workers leaving their jobs without receiving their long service leave payments.

Government to coal giants: Pay your workers’ rights if you want

ripped

Turner, who broke his back in a work-related accident in Mt Arthur in 2015 (despite being classified as a white-collar worker), has been struggling to get paid for the past decade. Here’s the story.

“[The contracts] All done illegally. “I had been living below the poverty line for over six years… My full award salary should have been $137,000 a year. I was being paid $400 a week!” He told MWM in 2024.

He seems to have a strong case. But who would take on such a case? charitable Against the power of BHP? Which lawyer?

Some may have treated this as ‘private’, and some may have actually addressed it specifically, but when the case came agonizingly close to going to trial in 2018, as if by magic, Turner’s previous lawyers failed to fully take their client’s case to trial, just before his case was due to be heard before a judge.

Yet they continued to build successful careers. Good for them, not for Simon Turner.

So Turner feels like he’s been deceived by lawyers over and over again and that he doesn’t have the money to hire more lawyers. But he had courage and finally appeared in court.

serious allegations

The fight will be heard before Judge Needham in Federal Court on Thursday morning this week. Unfortunately, the suppression order got buried in the Christmas rush.

This may seem like a gift to BHP because, on top of the fact that it has underpaid the company by $250 billion, Turner alleges a $2 billion wage theft affecting hundreds of coal miners working casually in numerous mines operated by multinational coal companies.

Illegal record falsification, concealment of evidence and mine safety issues. This is not the kind of dirty laundry BHP and its labor-hiring partners would want in the public domain.

Turner alleges that BHP and its partners conspired to misclassify workers as “casual” to pay them far less than the industry’s required reward rates when doing the same work as permanent staff.

big barrel

Lawyer Ian Latham’s observations on privacy issues LinkedIn post worth publishing. Mostly because courts must adhere to the principle of ‘open justice’.

“The Federal Court has faced a number of privacy filings. Turner v Macleod Group Limited (Interim Suppression Order) [2025] FCA 1599. BHP respondents sought confidentiality and non-publication or publication orders on a number of documents set out in the Original Application. These documents included the applicant’s Original Application and the applicant’s statement.”

The court noted: [11] HE:

The BHP defendants’ concern is that Mr Turner’s Principal Application, insofar as it alleges unlawful acts such as bad faith, concealment of Mr Turner’s terms of employment and “false, misleading and unlawful” actions, and given the first defendant’s expressed position that the proceedings were an abuse of process, would give the misleading impression that the claim could be properly asserted and the documents reported without the filing of a Defense by each of the defendants.

The court then convened at the following time: [12] HE:

Decisions to suppress or not to publish should only be made in exceptional circumstances… The most important consideration is the need to ensure justice; However, publication may be avoided where necessity necessitates a departure from the principle of public justice.

The court concluded on the following date: [17], [18] HE:

Based on the very limited material available to me, I have reached a point of satisfaction that the defendants’ position as to the overlap between the various historical cases between the parties is not undisputed. Accordingly, it may be possible that the documents currently in the court file provide a misleading or incomplete version of the defendants’ conduct in relation to Mr. Turner.

I have therefore determined that although fair justice is an important consideration, it is not the only consideration in making such orders. In my view, the public interest could be harmed if otherwise confidential settlement documents could be viewed and reported where the parties agreed as part of the terms of the settlement that the terms should be confidential.

Needham J continued to make interim confidentiality orders.”

It is also “indisputable” that this is a gift to BHP. Not that it could affect the judge’s impartiality. Rather, it seems that it would be in the public interest for the seriousness of these allegations to be heard; not to mention the interest of other coal miners deprived of underpayments; but I don’t know that.

Moreover, while it serves BHP’s public relations interests to silence the allegations, it does little to serve Simon Johnson’s interests if the allegation becomes known. Another lawyer would hear about this and decide to take on the job.

BHP has deep pockets to fight this case. Simon Turner has no two shillings to rub together. This would be like giving Goliath a shotgun to supplement his sword, or replacing the dandelions in David’s sling with stones.

BHP’s massive wage theft revealed: whistleblower and coal miner