BHP wanted us silenced NOW. The Federal Court said no

Judge rejects an urgent application by Australia’s biggest company BHP and its solicitors MinterEllison to drag a coal miner and MWM journalist into court. Michael West reports.

BHP and its solicitors MinterEllison thought they had their way. Until coal miner Simon Turner and Yours Truly, both of us self-represented, objected to their urgent application yesterday afternoon. And the Judge agreed.

The Big Australian and its lawyers had asked the Federal Court of Australia to hear its case to censor coverage of its case Simon Turner v BHP by 2.30 pm on Thursday May 21, 2026. Six business days’ notice. Late yesterday evening however her Honour Justice Needham declined to list the application urgently.

The matter remains on the orderly course her Honour had already set: the first case management hearing at 10.00 am on Thursday May 29.

What’s the hurry?

When the largest mining company in the country tries to obtain an urgent injunction against a small independent newsroom and a man with no income, the pace of the litigation tells us more than the paperwork. Yesterday, on the same Wednesday afternoon BHP’s lawyers MinterEllison filed a Certificate of Urgency in the Federal Court of Australia, two self-represented respondents, West and Turner, wrote to her Honour Justice Needham.

Last Friday afternoon, BHP and its corporate affiliates had an Originating Application filed in the Federal Court of Australia served on us. The named applicants are Hunter Valley Energy Coal Pty Ltd, BHP Group Limited, BHP Mt Arthur Coal Pty Ltd, and others.

The named respondents are Mr Simon Alexander Turner, a former Hunter Valley coal miner classified Totally and Permanently Disabled since 2017, currently homeless and sleeping on the floor of his mother’s garage, and Westpub Pty Ltd, the company that publishes this website Michael West Media.

The application seeks orders requiring us to take down two recent publications on this site: the article we ran last Saturday, BHP is suing us. Here is the File Number, and a YouTube video we put up on The West Report channel on Monday – Why Michael West Media is getting sued by Australia’s biggest company.

The ‘secret’ meeting

The application also seeks orders against Mr Turner requiring him to disclose every person to whom he has ever shown a 29-page transcript of a June 7, 2024, conciliation conference between him and BHP and MinterEllison, and to recover and destroy every copy of it.

That transcript is the document at the heart of this story. We will come back to it.

BHP’s original Originating Application of May 6, 2026 was, on the materials filed with it, directed at our earlier coverage of these events — in particular the editorial we published on April 11, 2026 under the title Please Explain, Pauline, which we also released in print and in podcast form.

The renewed urgency with which MinterEllison solicitor Trent Forno now presses on the Court is built on two publications that post-date BHP’s filing: the article we ran on May 9, 2026 and the YouTube video we put up on  May 11, 2026.

The pattern is straightforward enough: BHP sues us; we publish on BHP suing us; BHP says we must be silenced even more urgently.

This publication has sought to deal with BHP directly in the legal correspondence, given MinterEllison solicitor Trent Forno was present at the meeting complained of and therefore has a potential conflict of interest in the matter. BHP chief executive Mike Henry however did not respond.

Although MWM has previously sought comment from BHP and MinterEllison regarding the Turner case, neither have responded, preferring to file a lawsuit instead. One can only speculate how BHP shareholders feel.

BHP is major sponsor of the Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism. This reporter is a past Walkley winner.

Sleeping on the floor

On Tuesday, Simon Turner filed in the Federal Court of Australia an affidavit running to 41 pages, exhibiting an annexure bundle of 1,050 pages, together with a 27-page cross-claim against seven cross-respondents in the BHP and Chandler Macleod corporate groups.

The former coal miner has done so as a self-represented litigant, with no income at all. He is not on the pension. He has no workers’ compensation income.

He has no other income.

He has been sleeping on a garage floor for almost a decade. All because of BHP — the Big Australian.

The cross-claim seeks declarations that the two deeds of release Mr Turner was made to sign, the Workers Compensation Deed of Release of March 23, 2021 and the BHP Deed of Settlement and Release of 14 July 2022, are void, alternatively voidable, and are to be set aside.

It alleges, among other things, fraud upon the Federal Court of Australia.

BHP files a Certificate of Urgency

That filing landed with BHP overnight. By 11.04 am yesterday morning, Trent Forno the Brisbane partner of MinterEllison who is handling BHP’s case, had emailed the chambers of her Honour Justice Needham — to whose docket the proceeding had been allocated just two hours earlier — attaching a Certificate of Urgency under the Federal Court Rules 2011 (Cth).

“An article titled ‘BHP is suing us. Here is the File Number.’ published by the Second Respondent on or about May 9, 2026 … A video titled ‘Why Michael West Media is getting sued by Australia’s biggest company’ published by the Second Respondent on or about May 11, 2026.”

Forno asked the Court to list the application for substantive hearing on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. Two hours, he said, would be enough.

Her Honour’s chambers replied at 1.18 pm offering either 2.30 pm on Thursday May 21, 2026, or a hearing before the Duty Judge in the preceding three days. By 1.59 pm, under an hour later, MinterEllison had elected the Thursday slot.

The matter has, accordingly, been listed for interlocutory hearing in six business days’ time. The first case management hearing already set in the proceeding — 10.00 am on May 29, 2026, with short minutes of order due to her Honour’s chambers by 4 pm on May 27, 2026 — has been left to one side.

Simon Turner objects

At 2.49 pm yesterday afternoon, Simon Turner, as a self-represented First Respondent, wrote to her Honour’s chambers. He objected to the urgent listing. He pointed out that her Honour’s orders of April 10, 2026 do not cover the June 7, 2024 conciliation conference transcript (paragraphs 67 to 67D of his affidavit).

He flagged his appeal in NSD 488 of 2026 against Turner v Chandler Macleod Group Limited [2026] FCA 139 — 27 grounds, not yet listed for case management. He drew attention to his cross-claim filed on Tuesday alleging fraud upon the Federal Court of Australia.

He laid out his practical position: Totally and Permanently Disabled, no income, sleeping on the floor of his mother’s garage, a financial-hardship application before the Registry. He asked her Honour to keep the matter to the orderly course already set: the case management hearing on May 29, 2026.

West objects

At 4.32 pm, on behalf of Westpub Pty Ltd and personally, this writer sent a separate email to her Honour’s chambers. We objected too.

Our grounds, in addition to Mr Turner’s, were that Westpub was never a party to the proceeding in which the April 10, 2026 orders were made and therefore could not be bound by them; that the conciliation conference transcript was not one of the seven documents covered by those orders; that the email-documented re-receipt of the transcript was on February 28, 2026 at 10.05 am, one day after her Honour’s earlier orders of February 27, 2026 and more than five weeks before the orders of April 10, 2026; and that the application sought orders against an independent Australian newsroom in respect of

journalism on a matter of public interest,

in circumstances engaging the principles affecting the open administration of justice and freedom of political communication.

We also intend to ask the Court for leave under rule 4.01(2) of the Federal Court Rules 2011 (Cth) to appear personally for Westpub at and after the May 29, 2026 case management hearing, because Westpub is, like Mr Turner, not in a financial position to pay solicitors and barristers.

Her Honour declines the urgent listing

At 5.44 pm yesterday afternoon, the Associate to her Honour Justice Needham wrote to the parties. Her Honour had considered the Certificate of Urgency provided by the Applicants, and the subsequent correspondence from Mr Turner and MWM.

“Her Honour is not persuaded that the matter should be listed urgently for determination. Her Honour is in any event away this week, and not able to give the matter any Court time until late next week.”

Her Honour’s chambers confirmed that the matter would remain listed for the first case management hearing at 10.00 am on Thursday May 29, 2026. The Applicants were told that if they wish to agitate relief more urgently, they might approach the Duty Judge in the interim — but if they were to do so, they must make clear to the Respondents what relief they actually sought.

BHP and its solicitors thought they had their way. Until two self-represented respondents wrote to a Federal Court Judge in the course of a single Wednesday afternoon, and the Judge agreed with them.

It is the smallest of small wins. There are 7 cross-respondents, 13 causes of action, 27 grounds of appeal, 1,050 pages of evidence and an Originating Application from the world’s largest mining company still in front of the Court. But it is a win, on the law, on the merits, and on the day.

The April 10 orders do not say what BHP claims they say

The whole urgency of BHP’s application rests on orders her Honour Justice Needham made on April 10, 2026 in a separate proceeding, NSD 1984 of 2025, in which Mr Turner had himself been the applicant before being struck out by her Honour on February 4, 2026.

Those orders, made under section 37AF(1) of the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976 (Cth), prohibit the publication and disclosure of seven specifically identified documents.

The June 7, 2024 conciliation conference transcript is not one of those seven documents.

The transcript was never in evidence before her Honour in NSD 1984 of 2025. Simon Turner’s then-solicitors Conrad Curry Law gave it to him in or about June 2024 without restriction. We at Michael West Media first came into possession of the transcript in 2024.

Our email records confirm a further provision of the transcript by Mr Turner to me on February 28, 2026 at 10.05 am, one day after her Honour’s earlier orders of February 27, 2026 in NSD 1984 of 2025, and more than five weeks before the orders of April 10, 2026.

Westpub Pty Ltd was at no time a party to NSD 1984 of 2025. At no time when the transcript came into our possession was any court order in force restraining anyone from giving the transcript to a journalist.

This is not a technical point. It goes to the foundation of the urgency Trent Forno is now pressing on the Court.

The $11.4 billion in the bundle

The 1,050-page annexure bundle Mr Turner filed on Tuesday is not the gentle pile of paper of a man overreaching.

The annexures include 71 payslips identifying Chandler Macleod Group Limited (ABN 33 090 555 052) — the company with the assets, the BHP contract, the revenue, the workforce — as Mr Turner’s actual employer.

They include a letter from a Deputy Commissioner of the Australian Taxation Office dated May 3, 2023 confirming, in writing, that Mr Turner was not an employee of Ready Workforce (A Division of Chandler Macleod) Pty Ltd — the $2 shell entity named in the two deeds of release.

The annexures include the 2017 judgment of his Honour Judge Altobelli of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia in Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union v Hunter Valley Energy Coal Pty Ltd [2017] FCCA 1559.

On the same template Short Form Services Contract, at the same Mt Arthur Coal Mine, in the same period, his Honour found that the true employer of contractor labour was Chandler Macleod Group Limited and not Ready Workforce.

The respondent in those proceedings was Hunter Valley Energy Coal Pty Ltd — the First Applicant in BHP’s present proceeding against us.

The annexures also include an independent financial analysis dated May 2026 which puts the systemic potential wage-theft exposure across the BHP–Chandler Macleod corporate group at up to approximately $11.4 billion over a 13-year period, on Chandler Macleod’s own publicly stated headcount of around 20,000 contractors.

Yes. With a B.

The (now a senator for NSW)  David Shoebridge MLC identified about 273 contractor mineworkers at Mt Arthur Coal in materially identical positions to Simon Turner in 2016 alone.

Across the industry, the figure is potentially thousands. The Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission ruled the labour-hire model unlawful against BHP at the same site in February 2025. BHP lost in the Full Federal Court in December 2025.

The High Court refused BHP’s special leave application on 9 April 2026, with costs.

This is the broader factual landscape against which BHP’s urgent injunction application against us — to take down a YouTube video and an article on a matter of public interest — is now to be considered by her Honour.

Fraud upon the Federal Court

Part of the cross-claim Turner filed on Tuesday alleges that the present applicants and their solicitors knew of the Altobelli judgment when Simon Turner’s prior legal representative proceedings ACD 46 of 2018 and ACD 47 of 2018 were on foot in the Federal Court of Australia.

Hunter Valley Energy Coal Pty Ltd was, on the documentary record, the respondent in the Altobelli proceedings. The Federal Court of Australia was never told.

The cross-claim says — and this is what the cross-claim says, not what we assert — that the failure to bring the Altobelli judgment to the Federal Court of Australia constituted a fraud upon that Court within the meaning of Wentworth v Rogers [No 5] (1986) 6 NSWLR 534 and Toubia v Schwenke (2002) 54 NSWLR 46.

The prior representative proceedings were discontinued in May 2022 — two months before Simon Turner signed the 2022 BHP Deed for $700,000 inclusive of costs. After legal fees and disbursements, Turner received approximately $280,000 in his hand. He was 52 at the time. He is 56 now.

That $280,000 is what BHP paid him, in 2022, to last him the rest of his life.

The cross-claim says the deeds were procured by that concealment. It says the deeds are voidable; that Mr Turner elects to avoid them; and that they should be set aside in equity.

It is a serious allegation.

So why the rush?

BHP’s solicitor Trent Forno would have liked her Honour Justice Needham to spend two hours of next Thursday afternoon making orders against yours truly, and the man sleeping on a garage floor, requiring us both to be quiet about all of this. On six business days’ notice. Against two self-represented respondents.

Nothing in MinterEllison’s correspondence to chambers yesterday explained why such an extraordinary departure from the orderly course her Honour had already set was necessary.

The June 7, 2024 transcript has been with Michael West Media since 2024; the documented re-receipt is from February 28, 2026; and BHP did not move on it for sixty-six days between February 28, 2026 and May 6, 2026 when this proceeding was commenced.

The answer is that BHP would prefer the public, the Court and the parties to be looking at a YouTube video and a journalism article — not at a 1,050-page annexure bundle, an Altobelli judgment in which Hunter Valley Energy Coal Pty Ltd was on the wrong side of the same template document at the same mine, a 2017 finding that the true employer was Chandler Macleod Group Limited and not Ready Workforce, an ATO letter from 2023 confirming the same, and a cross-claim alleging fraud upon the Federal Court of Australia.

The bundle is not going away. The cross-claim is not going away. Neither, with respect, is the question that has not been asked from any bench: why did the Federal Court of Australia never hear about the Altobelli judgment in ACD 46/2018 and ACD 47/2018?

On to May 29

The next listed event in NSD 752 of 2026 is the first case management hearing at 10.00 am on Thursday May 29, 2026 before her Honour Justice Needham, at the Law Courts Building, Queens Square. Short minutes of order are due to chambers by 4.00 pm on Tuesday May 27, 2026.

Simon Turner will, at that case management hearing, foreshadow an application for a stay of this proceeding pending the determination of his appeal in NSD 488 of 2026. We will, at that case management hearing, formally seek leave to appear personally for Westpub Pty Ltd.

There is still a long way to run. There are seven cross-respondents to be served, a defence to be put in by BHP and its corporate affiliates, an appeal to be case-managed, and a 1,050-page annexure bundle to make its way before her Honour. The journalism is unaffected.

BHP wanted us silenced now. Yesterday afternoon, the Federal Court of Australia said no. The 1,091 pages of evidence Mr Turner filed on Tuesday are not going away. Neither are we.

……………

Michael West is the founding editor of Michael West Media. Westpub Pty Ltd is the Second Respondent in proceeding NSD 752 of 2026 in the Federal Court of Australia. The transcript referred to in this article was first received by Michael West Media in 2024 and was again provided to the editor by Simon Turner by email on February 28, 2026 at 10.05 am. The publication of this article does not, on the proper construction of the orders of her Honour Justice Needham of April 10, 2026 in NSD 1984 of 2025, contravene any order of the Federal Court of Australia. This article does not refer to, summarise or quote any of the seven specific documents that are the subject of her Honour’s orders of 10 April 2026.