BHP, the $300 billion multinational colossus, is suing Michael West Media to muzzle media coverage of a wage theft case. Michael West reports.
The Big Australian, BHP, has filed a Federal Court application to silence an independent Australian newsroom. This is what that means: for BHP, for journalism, and for Australia.
The proceedings, filed with the Federal Court of Australia, are Hunter Valley Energy Coal Pty Ltd & Ors [BHP] v Simon Alexander Turner & Anor. NSD 752 of 2026. Filed 6 May 2026.
The “& Anor” is this journalist. More precisely, it is Westpub Pty Ltd, the company that publishes Michael West Media.
BHP Group Limited has gone to the Federal Court of Australia and asked the Court to make an Australian newsroom take down a YouTube video, take down an article, hand over every copy of the underlying material, and tell BHP’s lawyers the names of every person who has ever been provided with that material.
This is what BHP wants from us.
BHP’s Originating Application in case against MW and Simon Turner
In its originating application, the orders BHP seeks against Westpub include the following:
Firstly, a permanent injunction restraining Westpub from “disclosing, publishing, communicating or otherwise making available to any person” any information relating to a conciliation conference held by Microsoft Teams on 7 June 2024.
The parties present at this meeting were Tom Hunter-Leahy, Lachlan Apps, Sophie Croft (BHP), Simon Turner (coal miner), Trent Forno (MinterEllison partner representing BHP), John Hickey (BHP lawyer) and Hugh Carter (General Counsel to Senator Malcolm Roberts’ office).
Secondly, an order requiring Westpub to “permanently remove” a YouTube video published on this masthead on April 15, 2026 (Pauline, Please Explain | The West Report) and an article published on April 26, 2026 (BHP threatens coal miner for leaking in David v Goliath court stoush).
BHP threatens coal miner for leaking in David v Goliath court stoush
Thirdly, an order requiring Westpub to disclose to BHP’s lawyers MinterEllison the identity of every person who has ever been provided with any recording or other material relating to the conference, and a description of the material provided.
Fourthly, an order requiring Westpub to deliver up to MinterEllison all originals and copies of any recording, and any other materials relating to the conference.
That is what BHP, in 2026, is asking the Federal Court of Australia to compel a small independent newsroom to do.
This is not really about us. It is also entirely about us.
The reason BHP filed NSD 752 of 2026 is a former Mt Arthur Coal worker named Simon Turner who broke his back working at the Mt Arthur coal mine in the Hunter Valley in 2015. He was being paid $400 a week when he should have been on $137k a year and has been seeking compensation.
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This masthead has been writing about Simon Turner for years. We have published at least eleven stories on his case and his circumstances. We will keep writing about it, unless ordered otherwise by the Court.
We are not the only outlet that should be on this story. It is a story of national significance because there are thousands of miners who have been underpaid as ‘casuals’. A class action is looming.
So this article is not just about Simon Turner.
It is about the fact that BHP, the Big Australian, a 140-year-old institution which makes claims to ESG disclosures and good corporate citizenry, going to the Federal Court of Australia and asking the Court to demand an independent Australian newsroom not publish about a matter of demonstrable public interest.
That is, about a thing that has happened. The court file proves it has happened. The file number is NSD 752 of 2026.
In Turner’s case earlier this year, BHP was not required by the Court to file a defence. The case was thrown out and Turner’s claim and the transcripts of the hearing were subject to draconian confidentiality orders. He has appealed the decision but the Court is yet to set a date for hearing.
Why stand up to BHP?
There are many reasons why we are standing up to the demands of BHP and MinterEllison.
The first reason is this. This reporter left mainstream media to start an independent newsroom in 2016 reaching the conclusion, after years inside the legacy media, that the editorial freedoms which we journalists had cared about most could not be reliably exercised inside an institution whose revenue depended on the goodwill of advertisers, sponsors, partners and shareholders who were also, structurally, the subjects of much of the most important journalism.
We started MWM on the premise that it was in the public interest to cover the rising power of corporations in our democracy.
We have always told readers that this newsroom is not for sale.
Nor to be bullied. These promises would become worthless the moment the first letter of demand arrived and we signed an undertaking not to publish something we believed would be in the public interest.
The second reason is that the matters BHP wants us to undertake not to publish is because there are broader matters of public interest at stake here. They concern the treatment of coal-mine production workers in New South Wales.
They concern the operation of insurance arrangements for those workers.
They concern the conduct of major mining companies and their lawyers in long-running litigation. They concern, in short, things that the readers of an Australian newsroom are entitled to know about. To capitulate to demands of corporations using the law for commercial objectives would be to betray MWM readers and the community.
What does this action tell us about BHP?
The lawsuit tells us things about BHP and the legal system.
BHP is a sophisticated litigant. The decision to file an originating application of this kind in the Federal Court of Australia, against an independent journalist defendant, in 2026, was likely made on advice. Someone weighed the costs, the benefits, and the optics, and made the call.
Three observations about that calculus:
Observation one. The story BHP is asking the Court to suppress is, by BHP’s own conduct, a story BHP regards as material. You do not file in the Federal Court of Australia, with the costs and the publicity that follow, to suppress a story you think nobody cares about. The application itself is a concession that the underlying matters are real.
Observation two. The application is textbook Streisand Effect. Filing it has, mechanically, ensured that the underlying story will now be reported more widely. There is no version of NSD 752 of 2026 in which BHP ends up, in the public mind, with less attention to Simon Turner’s case than it had on the morning before the application was filed.
Observation three. BHP has chosen this litigation in parallel with its existing Same Job Same Pay disputes with the Fair Work Commission, in which it is currently seeking High Court review of orders affecting more than two thousand workers across Mt Arthur Coal and its Queensland operations.
Suing a coal miner and a journalist while simultaneously litigating wage arrangements affecting thousands of others is not the action of a company comfortable with the underlying questions.
Who, internally at BHP, signed off on this filing? Will BHP shareholders be comfortable with the refusal of their company to defend its industrial relations practices in public?
Press freedom
This is now a press-freedom matter. It will be cited as one in industry and legal circles, submissions, and discussions. The next time a major Australian corporate respondent is tempted to sue an independent newsroom under the equitable doctrine of breach of confidence to take down a YouTube video and an article on a matter of public interest, the conduct of NSD 752 of 2026 will be in the bundle.
If you are an Australian journalist reading this, your view on whether or not this lawsuit ought to have been filed is a view that matters. The Australian press, in 2026, is one of the few institutions positioned to draw a line on this kind of corporate conduct. We do not need to draw it together. We do need to draw it.
BHP has consistently refused to respond to questions for stories about the Turner matter, as has MinterEllison – to defend their actions in the public arena – the two of them instead preferring to resort to legal threats to address matters of public interest.
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Disclosure: Westpub Pty Ltd, the publisher of Michael West Media, is a respondent in the proceedings the subject of this article. MWM is funded by readers. The author is the editor and publisher of this masthead and the sole director of the publishing company. The matters reported in this article are taken from the public court file in NSD 752 of 2026, from prior published work on this masthead, and from correspondence between the parties.
Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.