(Address supplied)
Western Australia, 6951
 
 

The Ambassador of Australia
The Australian Embassy
4 Rue Jean Rey
57015 Paris
 

19 March, 2005
 
 

Dear Sir,
 

I am writing to you following receipt of a copy of a letter to you by Jean-Paul Turcaud, to add weight to his communication.   Mr Turcaud’s name has been known to me for many years on account of his reputation as a prospector, and for his discovery of the Telfer gold mine.  I also met him recently on the internet, and hope to have the honour of meeting him personally in the future.

I am writing out of concern that an injustice has been done to this man who has contributed much to the State of Western Australia through his discovery and through his explorations in that region.   I think it appalling that through the detrimental machinations of others he should find himself in the position where he has received virtually neither recognition nor recompense for his efforts.  I believe this has put his life under great stress for many years.

I am therefore writing to ask you to do what you may to raise awareness of whatever appropriate representative body or person exists in the Federal or State Governments who may be in a position to take action to set things right.  Some intercession is clearly needed before it is too late.  It is over thirty years since the Telfer gold mine was discovered, from which a share has accrued to the state from profits that thus far have totalled billions of dollars.

The situation is this:- here we have a man who came from France to find his fortune in Australia and did so in epic fashion and against odds and conditions that no fit exploration companies at the time would meet,  yet in the course of his own fair dealings according to the rules of trust between prospectors and most mining companies, had this fortune effectively taken from him by the misdealings of others, and on account of which by default Australia as a whole has benefitted.  The record is set out in the researched history of this affair in the book by Bob Sheppard, 2002, "The Golden Rule",  Hesperian Press, 268pps.  I have the greatest respect for Mr Turcaud, not only for his actual discovery, but especially for his fearless initiative in undertaking exploration in that part of Australia in the first place.  As a professional geologist enjoying the support of a large multinational mining company at the time I worked in the early seventies in that same most inhospitable region - the fringe of the Great Sandy Desert directly consequent on the information deriving from Mr Turcaud's finds.  As a party we found it hardly conceivable that a lone prospector without back-up support would undertake to do as we were, ...indeed more, since the trail had already been blazed for us by him.

Many people have benefited considerably from Mr Turcaud's find, yet he himself has received virtually nothing.  Had his finds been met according to the expectations of any reasonable person I believe he would have been proud to consider himself one of Australia's sons in the country of his choice.  Who knows what else such a man of integrity, vision and drive might have accomplished to the benefit of this country.  As it is we have a sad story, both of a serious miscarriage of common justice and a classic case of  'blaming the victim', which is invariably the penalty inflicted on our 'tall poppies' by lesser men.

I therefore write to appeal to your sense of fairness, to ask for your support in preventing this remaining as a blot against the history of Western Australia.    Surely some way can be found to afford this man some reasonable retrospective compensation, and some substantial supplement made to the meager entitlements outlined in his letter, in order that he may live his life in some measure of the expectation that would have accrued to him had he been dealt with fairly.

I appeal through you to our government, to show generosity towards an exceptional man who did an exceptional thing, and for his reward met exceptionally deplorable and shoddy treatment at the hands of others.
 

Yours faithfully,
 
 

Donald Findlay.

cc. to the Premier of Western Australia.