The latest manoeuvre by BHP and co in their Goliath v David court case against an injured coal miner is to run him out of money, which he doesn’t have. Michael West reports, having finally obtained the transcripts!
The extraordinary perversion of justice proceeds apace in the case of the injured coal miner Simon Turner versus mining giant BHP and 4 others. A class action for underpaid coal workers is underway.
Latest. Key points:
- BHP’s labour hire firm, Chandler Macleod, has hit Turner up with a demand for costs.
- Turner, having lost an interlocutory, is appealing.
- MWM has finally sourced the transcripts from a February 12 court hearing (we publish key passages below).
- The Federal Court transcription service has gone belly up (it was outsourced to a foreign multinational, VIQ, which tried to charge almost 2k for .. but was still unable to provide the documents three weeks later).
- Most of the documents were suppressed by the Judge
- A case hearing on the suppression orders is set down for April 10.
- Transcripts show Turner told Court he was tricked into signing a fake deed.
- A class action is underway for casual coal miners.
Background
Simon Turner, a coal miner at BHP’s Mt Arthur coal mine in the Hunter Valley, appeared as a self-represented litigant before Justice Needham in the Federal Court on 12 February 2026. He faced four interlocutory applications brought by Chandler Macleod Group Limited (CMG), BHP Group Limited and related entities, and Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave Funding) Corporation.
The respondents sought to have their claims struck out and summarily dismissed.
The essence of Turner’s case is that he was employed by Chandler Macleod Group Limited, which all his work-related documents show, but that settlement deeds entered into in his name identified a different entity, Ready Workforce, a subsidiary, as the employer.
In 2017, a Federal Circuit Court ruling by Justice Altobelli had already found that Chandler was the true employer of labour-hire workers at Mt Arthur.
Turner says the deeds are false.
In her decision, Justice Needham dismissed all Turner’s claims on February 27, 2026, refused leave for Turner to replead his case, ordered the Statement of Claim removed from the Court file, and made sweeping suppression orders over virtually all of the filed materials.
The following six transcript passages reveal what happened inside the courtroom.
“I didn’t know I had to file that evidence”
The self-represented coal miner explains to the Court he didn’t understand the procedural requirement to file evidence separately from his submissions – and the Judge refuses to adjourn the case.
Turner: “The only reason I didn’t know I had to file that evidence.”
The Judge then canvassed whether BHP and the respondents would consent to the evidence being admitted. They objected, despite never having seen it:
Vanja Bulut, counsel for BHP: “I don’t know what they disclose or don’t disclose, because there’s just a reference, for example, in the first dot point of payslips, and so I don’t know what the document discloses. So I’m not aware as to even the relevance of the documents.”
Catherine Bembrick for Coal LSL: “…albeit that I don’t know what that material is precisely … my present view would be that this information, I think, would not assist the Court in addressing my client’s application.”
Why this matters: three sets of corporate lawyers objected to a self-represented coal miner filing his evidence sight unseen. The judge then refused to let him file it. His entire case was then determined summarily, without any of his evidence being before the Court.
The hearing lasted under three hours.
“Ready Workforce was not a party to the deed”
BHP’s own barrister confirmed that the entity named as Turner’s “employer” in the settlement deed was never actually a party to the deed with BHP:
Ms Bulut: “Ready Workforce was not a party to that deed … There’s a reference in the document in a recital to Ready Workforce being the employer, but it is not party to the deed. The deed was one entered into between two of my clients and Mr Turner.
Why this matters: The entity described as Turner’s “employer” in the recitals to the BHP settlement deed – Ready Workforce – was not even a party to the deed. If the employer was misidentified in the recitals, the entire factual premise of the settlement may be wrong.
This admission was made by the respondents’ own counsel in open court, yet the Judge did not treat it as raising an issue worthy of trial.
Defence: “It doesn’t really matter”
Chandler’s barrister dismisses the fundamental question of employer identity – a question that determines which industrial award applies, what wages are owed, and what workers’ compensation system covers an injured worker:
Ian Latham for Chandler Macleod: “… there has been some discussion already about who of those two might be the employer. It doesn’t really matter for reasons that I will go to later.
Later, when pressed, Latham repeats:
“Just in relation to the last 10 minutes … it doesn’t matter who the particular employer is because they’re both covered by the release and the deed.
Turner’s response from the floor:
“Under an unlawful occupation wage.”
Why this matters: The identity of the employer determines everything: which industrial award applies, what the minimum lawful wage is, which workers’ compensation scheme covers the worker, and how long service leave accrues.
Chandler’s own counsel told the Court it “doesn’t really matter” — a remarkable position for a labour-hire company to take about the identity of the employer it purports to be.
“[They] put me under duress”
Turner tells the Court his own lawyers in the prior class action withheld documents and acted against his direct instructions, including by changing the named employer from Chandler Macleod to Ready Workforce:
Turner: “… the people that represented me in those matters put me under duress and withheld documents. They also acted against my direct instructions. Now, I have all this as evidence in writing.
And later, on what happened to the Altobelli ruling:
Turner: “… I instructed Adero Law … constantly … that they had to submit the Altobelli ruling. I told them constantly that Ready Workforce was not my employer. They agreed with that … Adero agreed with me it was filed on the Chandler Macleod Group, and then … somehow it was changed to Ready Workforce.
Why this matters: Turner alleges that his former solicitors, Adero Law, the firm behind one of Australia’s largest class actions, agreed that Chandler was the employer, then changed the named respondent to Ready Workforce against his instructions, and proceeded to settle on that basis.
Tricked
The 2017 Altobelli decision, which found CMG was the true employer, was never put before the class action court. These are serious allegations of professional misconduct that go directly to the validity of the settlements.
Chandler’s own barrister agrees Adero Law should be joined
In a striking exchange, Chandler’s counsel concedes that if Turner’s allegations about his former lawyers are part of a viable case, those lawyers would need to be joined to the proceeding:
J Needham: Should they have been joined if there’s … a question as to the meaning of this deed or whether it should be revisited by this Court? Are they a necessary party to these proceedings?
Latham: I think, your Honour, given what was said today, they would be … If … the issues that have been raised today were to be part of an ultimate case, they would need to be joined. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.
Why this matters: The judge herself raised whether Adero Law should be joined as a party. CMG’s own barrister agreed “without doubt” they would need to be. Yet no joinder was ordered, no adjournment was granted to allow it, and the case was dismissed.
The very counsel who agreed these lawyers were necessary parties then successfully argued the case should be struck out, without those parties being present.
Turner: they say they have no authority,
“yet they changed who the employer is”.
Turner reveals that Coal LSL told the Court it had no power to determine who his employer is, but had already retrospectively changed his employer records from Chandler to Ready Workforce:
Turner: “They say they have no authority to determine who the employer is, yet they send me an email to say they have now changed who the employer is that they have recorded.”
“That was only 12 months ago. This is after everything that has happened.”
Earlier, Turner had detailed the extent of the discrepancy:
“… as recently as in the email sent to me by Sharife Rahmani at Coal LSL, they say they have now changed the employer records to reflect Ready Workforce … who told them and gave them the authority to change those records to Ready Workforce when the whole time … Chandler Macleod Group ABN is the company that paid the levy the whole time.”
Why this matters: a Commonwealth statutory authority responsible for coal miners’ long service leave records told the Federal Court it has no power to determine employer identity, although having retrospectively altered that very field in Turner’s records.
If the employer identity was changed from Chandler to Ready Workforce after the class action, this raises the question of who instructed Coal LSL to make that change and why. Turner’s ATO records, payslips, superannuation records, and a Federal Circuit Court ruling all say Chandler was the employer.
Suppression and the proceedings
On February 27, 2026, Justice Needham delivered judgment dismissing all of Turner’s claims. The key orders were:
- The Originating Application and Statement of Claim were struck out against CMG, with no leave to replead,
- Summary judgment was entered for BHP and Coal LSL,
- The Statement of Claim was ordered removed from the Court file entirely, on the basis that it constituted an “abuse of process”,
- Sweeping suppression orders were made over virtually all filed materials — the Statement of Claim, Turner’s affidavit, the respondents’ interlocutory application, all submissions, and parts of the hearing transcript,
- The Originating Application was ordered redacted.
The effect is that Turner’s case has been extinguished, and substantially all of the evidence of what happened has been placed under suppression.
The hearing lasted under three hours.
Turner was denied the opportunity to file his evidence.
No defence was ever filed by any respondent.
The broader picture
Turner’s case involves allegations of systematic employer misclassification in one of Australia’s largest coal mines. If Chandler Macleod Group Limited was the true employer – as Justice Altobelli ruled in 2017, as the ATO’s records show, and as Chandler’s own counsel effectively conceded at the hearing – then settlement deeds worth hundreds of thousands of dollars were built on a false premise, a class action affecting approximately 800 workers was conducted against the wrong entity, and workers’ compensation was processed under false employer data.
Turner is now appealing to the Full Court of the Federal Court. The deadline for filing is March 27, 2026.
And the Federal Court has to do something about its shoddy and overpriced transcription service. How can anybody lodge an appeal or rely on evidence which is late, overpriced and sometimes just plain wrong?
Wild Accusations. BHP has even its own evidence muzzled by Court