BHP’s lawyers Minter Ellison have threatened coal miner Simon Turner with legal proceedings for ‘breach of confidence’ over an MWM story. Michael West reports.
They don’t call them solicitors for nothing. In their desperation to muzzle the media, as well the courts, BHP’s lawyers Minter Ellison have threatened coal miner Simon Turner with legal proceedings for ‘breach of confidence’.
The threat relates to a story published by The West Report on Youtube about a series of meetings a couple of years ago, and related correspondence, between Turner, Minters partners Trent Forno and John Hickey, BHP’s internal lawyers, another coal miner Sam Stephens, Minerals Council of Australia boss Tania Constable and Hugh Carter a lawyer for Pauline Hanson One Nation’s senator Malcolm Roberts.
Tania Constable email to Simon Turner
As reported here, BHP successfully demanded the Federal Court muzzle large swathes of Simon Turner’s case against the Big Australian and other parties. Details of this meeting were subjected to confidentiality orders. Yet BHP’s latest legal salvo omits one crucial fact … time.
The media organisation in question, MWM (this publisher), has known about this meeting and related correspondence for years and was merely disclosing information garnered before the legal proceedings this year.
No doubt BHP would like the legal system to bestow upon it confidentiality over all of human history. At stake is a looming class action on behalf of casual coal miners, who allege BHP and other mining companies underpaid them for years via labour hire firms such as Chandler Macleod – also a defendant in the Turner case.
Those who have been following this David v Goliath saga will know that a few weeks ago, the judge in the case suppressed most of Turner’s evidence. He could not even get the transcripts for his own case. Nor could MWM, even though they tried to charge almost $2k for a matter heard supposedly in ‘open court’ … evidence relating to both MWM and Turner brought by Minter Ellison.
The evidence in Turner’s case was buried by confidentiality orders requested by BHP and BHP and co were never required to file a defence.
Before the last hearing, Simon Turner made a hardship application to the Court. He has no money. They were trying to make him pay thousands of dollars to appeal. Yet the irony was that to make this application he was required to disclose his payslips.
Those payslips showed that Chandler Macleod was his employer, despite BHP and its lawyers claiming for years that another entity called Ready Workforce was his employer.
David v Goliath. Court gets real evidence from miner v BHP by accident
The reason for BHP’s strident defence of this case is that it is potentially a forerunner to a class action worth billions. Politically, the matter is tricky as the Coalition and One Nation are arguably captured by donations by BHP and the mining lobby and the Labor government is beholden to the unions which have sided with BHP in the matter.
Under the Black Coal Mining Industry Award, Simon Turner was entitled to $137,000 a year. BHP and Chandler Macleod Group paid him $66,000 – through a system deliberately constructed to get around paying Black Coal Award rates.
When he broke his back on BHP’s mine site, the same system left him on $400 a week workers compensation instead of the $2,108 a week to which he was legally entitled.
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Here is the bit where it gets interesting. BHP’s CEO Mike Henry wanted the industrial relations risk posed by Turner and others fixed. His Government Relations machine appears to have staged a political letter to silence Senator Malcolm Roberts, the Pauline Hanson One Nation senator who had been publicly championing Turner for years.
The Gina Rinehart connection
Gina Rinehart, whose mining empire runs on the identical system, has been flying Pauline Hanson to Mar-a Lago on her private jet and funnelling nearly $900,000 into One Nation’s political machine.
On June 7, 2024, a settlement conference was held. Attendees included BHP’s Minter Ellison senior partner Trent Forno, BHP authorised representative Sophie Croft, Turner and his legal team, and – critically – Hugh Carter, General Counsel to Senator Malcolm Roberts’ office. The meeting was recorded.
Turner stated on the record, unchallenged, “Mike Henry and Geraldine Slattery know exactly what they are exposed to and Mike Henry said, ‘Fix it now’ — and we are now in June of 2024″.
“It’s much bigger than that”
BHP’s Minter Ellison lawyer Trent Forno acknowledged at that conference: “It’s much bigger than that, clearly. It involves multiple claims and causes of action”.
Roberts’ General Counsel told the conference: “From my perspective, I think Simon has a clear, strong case should he go to Court.”
Turner gave a 7-day ultimatum. BHP did not respond within 7 days. BHP did not respond within 7 weeks. Eighty-three days later, BHP’s Government Relations team – not its lawyers – sent a letter to Senator Roberts. The letter made zero mention of the June meeting. It told Roberts that Turner’s claims were ‘unfounded’ and had ‘no prospect of success’. I
It closed the door on any further settlement.
This was not a legal communication. It was political. Malcolm Roberts’ General Counsel was in the room at the June meeting. He heard Forno say the case was ‘much bigger’. He told the conference Turner had a ‘clear, strong case’.