Newmont's Legacy to Australia - 'The Lie'

Newmont's legacy to Australia is not the Telfer mine, but the Telfer name, for in it is inscripted the lie that was set in place to sever the connection between Turcaud's discovery of Telfer and Newmont's possession of it.

The criteria for severance were several, the principal one (above) being that Turcaud did not recognise gold and therefore "did not play a critical role in the discovery process."   Note that Tyrwhitt's claim to entitlement is not vested in what Newmont did do, but what Turcaud didn't  do, a classic ad hominem tactic of argument:  when bereft of argument - attack the opponent.  For it is a transparently nonsensical and immoral argument.  Turcaud wrote:-

Tyrwhitt's 'cornerstone' (above) presumes knowledge of where the gossanous samples came from.  Obviously if this is unknown then no amount of recognising gold in samples by anyone - even samples from the largest orebody in the world -  will avail anything, least of all a mine..   From a prospecting viewpoint, the key element is not the specific, detailed content of the gossans (which had clear indications of mineralisation), but the location, and the indications  that would lead to further examination/ uncovery/ exploration in the first place,  that revealed the gold in the second, and the extent over which they occurred.  Newmont's claim that Thomson was the discoverer of the location ("on a hunch") is in itself laughably false, and moreover Sheppard (2002, p.127), noting that Turcaud is entirely omitted from A.A.C. Mason's (A.I.M.M.) account of the Telfer discovery, "No Two The Same", writes:-

Turcaud does not warrant a mention in Mason's recollections of the Telfer discovery, ..or perhaps he does.  Mason wrote: "In 1971 Day Dawn Minerals, responding to a recommendation by Thomson, funded an expedition to examine an area in the vicinity of the Paterson Range in the East Pilbara District of Western Australia where Thomson had learned of some discoveries of copper.."   Is this an admission by the one-time manager of the Telfer Mine that Thomson's lead just may have come from the prospector Turcaud? ...or did the information come from WMC or Anglo American?

Sheppard might have added "which companies Turcaud had earlier guided around the prospect and had sampled it extensively".   By 1994 and as a Newmont employee Mason must have been just as much at pains as Dimo to exclude the name of Turcaud from the discovery, but trips up on  the truth, especially when the testimony of the mineral identification expert who gave Turcaud a vital piece of information, is taken into account.  For if Thomson had "learned"..., then from whom, exactly,  had he learned ' what ',  exactly?  And if the copper which Turcaud had previously introduced to Day Dawn had been deemed to be of no interest, then what (exactly) was of interest to lead them directly to the prospect?  For at that stage Thomson had not (officially at least),  "learned" of gold.

("Thomson is a reclusive character, ...known for hanging up on anyone who calls to talk about the controversy" - Adcock, 1999).

Turcaud's own samples ran considerably when assayed for gold and so later when tested did the samples Western Mining collected when Turcaud led them over the prospect.  Tyrwhitt's argument that Turcaud "did not play a critical role in the discovery process", is facile and disingenuous, for it tacitly acknowledges that Turcaud discovered the gossans (recognised the copper), their location, and therefore the surficial expression of the orebody, and because it maintains (falsely) Thomson as the discoverer.  So the connection that follows -  that ("therefore") Turcaud did not play a critical role in the discovery process -  is, and always has been, calculated to create a false belief and as such is tantamount to a lie.  And deserves to be named as such. The linkage of logic is inherently false, and taking overall context into account, especially that of Newmont's twice-refusal of the prospect when directly introduced to it by Turcaud, very substantially immoral.

Splitting hairs and spinning words is a game two can play.  For example it could be safely argued that Telfer is not a gold mine at all, but a  gold-copper mine (gold, 27 tonnes; copper, 30,000 tonnes mineable for 24 years).  But if world affairs were to elevate the price of copper and depress the price of gold then Telfer would become a copper-gold mine.  In fact, if demand for both copper and gold were to fail completely and the mine were to close, it would be neither. It would not be a mine at all.   An occurrence of mineralisation that is not economic is not a mine.  But the anomalous concentration of metal would still be in the ground.  With a bit sticking out.  To be discovered.  Which Turcaud did.  In other words, economics do not pertain to the fact of discovery - only to the fact of 'mine'.  'Mine' is not an artifact of nature, and the fact of discovery is a thing entirely apart from the thing discovered.  So for Tyrwhitt (and others) to rest Newmont's case for refuting Turcaud's discovery in commercial viability (" gold/ commercial indications")  is obvious and facile nonsense.   And coming from three geologists* of Newmont (Searls, Tyrwhitt, Thomson), all well aware of the typical polymetallic nature of ore deposits and the importance of mineral processing techniques and the marketplace in determing commercial viability, one wonders what sort of fabrication they were trying to concoct.  So this hairsplitting, this 'truth-but-untruth'... that Turcaud "did not recognise the gold", ...this 'calculation to create a false belief', is no more than a crude attempt to dress Newmont's lie.  In the popular vernacular, it is a 'put-up job'.   A 'scam'.

This denial, stage-managed by their perpetrators, swept others along in its path, in turn testing their own moral mettle - considerably to their detriment as it turned out.  For perhaps more disturbing than the lie itself was the readiness of government to give it credence, and even promote it.   And the more disturbing still is the current Premier's observation that no further enquiries are warranted when Bob Sheppard personally gave a copy of his book to the Premier on the steps of the Perth Mint at a function some time following the launch three years ago.  Most likely (being a busy person)  he didn't read it, or, having read it, ignored its contents which are entirely a graphic illustration of 'The Lie'.   There is in fact no evidence that any enquiries have been carried out by any government.  Successive State Governments have refused to address questions concerning the nexus between Turcaud's discovery and Newmont's possession despite Koehn's protest that the lie of Newmont's 'discovery' was given offical sanction in the Geological Survey's Annual Report for 1973, his later endorsement of this complaint in an article for Corporate Mining Magazine in 1991, and a call by the Shadow Attorney General in 1975 for a Royal enquiry into the means generally whereby the mineral wealth of the State was delivered into Newmont's hands, (as it appears from the researched account by Sheppard)  to the detriment of other shareholder entitlements.

This lie over discovery is not a simple question of kudos, but a more overarching one involving the linkage (or rather the value to Newmont of the severance of it) of the value of discovery to the value of the thing discovered.  It addresses both Turcaud's extraordinary exploratory effort that Newmont actively sought to extinguish, and the related events surrounding that extinguishment.  The account here is an attempt to more widely advertise the facts surrounding that extinguishment.  If this is not done then Newmont's legacy to the State - this 'lie' -  will be bequeathed to posterity in the name, not of Searls or of Tyrwhitt who perpetrated it, nor even in the name of Newmont, but in the name of A.H. Telfer, retired Minister for Mines, who agreed to give his name to the township, and by which the ore body is known.   An appeal to Telfer to refuse the nomination  (follow link; search <Latter>) was unsuccessful.  Albert H. Telfer, long serving and respected member of the Department of Mines, died in 1979.  Not only have Newmont's actions been tantamount to defaming his posterity, but also that of the history of the State, for here encroaches on this dispute the right of the public voice to be heard in accurately recording history.  The official account of the discovery should be corrected.
 

*R.J. Searls   -  Managing Director Newmont Australia;
  D. Tyrwhitt  - Exploration Manager
  R. Thomson - Newly hired, then fired shortly afterwards