BHP sued journalist Michael West and coal miner Simon Turner to shut down wage theft allegations. Now it is demanding we pay MinterEllison’s costs. Michael West reports.
When BHP and and its solicitors MinterEllison came to the Federal Court last month, they came swinging. Now, with a hearing set for this morning, the mining giant and its legal eagles from Minters appear to want something quieter: orders sealing their own founding evidence, take-down orders against this masthead, and costs against the very people they dragged into court.
BHP Group and two of its coal subsidiaries, Mt Arthur Coal and Hunter Valley Energy Coal, commenced proceedings in May against former coal worker Simon Turner and Westpub Pty Ltd, the company behind Michael West Media. The proceedings were launched on the strength of a sworn affidavit by MinterEllison partner Trent Forno.
That affidavit is now at the centre of the case – but not in the way BHP intended.
Simon Turner has applied to restrain Trent Forno and MinterEllison from acting in the proceeding on grounds of conflict of interest. On May 29, the Court was told Mr Forno had stepped aside until that application was decided, and that BHP no longer relied on a key paragraph of his affidavit. In the material filed for the June 4 hearing today, BHP is now asking the Court to make the whole of that affidavit confidential.
Its own affidavit.
In other words, the document that started the case is the document BHP now wants neither to rely on nor to let the public see.
At the same time, BHP is pressing for orders requiring Michael West Media to permanently take down its reporting, and for orders suppressing a cross-claim that Mr Turner has filed — a cross-claim alleging that historic settlement deeds were procured by fraud. The contents of that cross-claim are currently subject to an interim suppression order, so they cannot be reported here.
BHP denies the allegations and says they are without merit.
Turning up the heat
And BHP is now seeking costs against Turner, a self-represented former worker who says he has been left without income or support since a 2015 workplace injury, and against this small independent publisher as well.
Simon Turner argues there is a more fundamental problem. He says MinterEllison cannot continue to act because its own partner is the principal witness to the events at the heart of the case, because the firm’s evidence founded the proceeding, and because the firm is too closely entangled in the matters now in dispute. He intends to argue that the Court should decide who may appear before it decides anything else.
Westpub, for its part, says it should not be in the proceeding at all.
It is a non-party to the underlying events, it published as journalists on a matter of public interest, and no cause of action has been pleaded against it. It has offered to make its earlier take-down permanent in exchange for being released from the case – an offer BHP has rejected.
Earlier, on Tuesday this week, BHP’s solicitors from MinterEllison had touched base offering to discontinue the lawsuit against MWM if we made certain undertakings regarding publishing.
“It is … necessary for BHP to understand Westpub’s intentions in this matter, prior to filing that material,” said the approach from partner Tom Fletcher and associate Jessica Ogden.
We responded that our intentions in the matter were that we would like the proceedings to be discontinued and would be prepared to permanently take down the two stories which were subject to interim confidentiality orders but that we could not accept at this time their proposed undertakings regarding future publishing of other stories.
It was for the Judge to decide on confidentiality.
They responded yesterday with a flurry of correspondence late into the evening – the essence of which is described above – married with threats to make cost claims against us in the proceedings.
The hearing is listed before Justice Needham this morning.
BHP and MinterEllison were not contacted for comment for this story as they have refused to comment for stories prior to their lawsuit. This article reports on filings and orders in proceeding NSD 752 of 2026 and does not reproduce material subject to suppression orders.Â
The broader public-interest theme is that the world’s biggest mining company, which receives billions in public subsidies, is using the Court process to seal evidence and silence reporting about its conduct toward an injured worker. It is also about the fundamental question of open justice.
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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.