Historian Lenore Layman describes how this exposed major failings not just in the industry, but also in the governments who bore responsibility for regulation and monitoring.

The unions weren’t fully aware of the dimensions of the problem posed by asbestos. As historian Lenore Layman explains, their strategies of either advising members to avoid the workplaces or accepting dirt and danger money, didn’t do enough to minimise the risks for their members.

CSR’s attempt to profit from asbestos by mining blue asbestos in Wittenoom was an expensive failure. Like James Hardie, it has had to deal with the deadly legacy of the impact of exposure to the mineral on its workers, but its approach to compensation was quite different. As historian Gideon Haigh explains, in contrast to the drawn out litigation of the James Hardie cases, CSR was rather more willing to settle its cases.

Wally Simpson Case
In 1984 Peter Gordon, a lawyer practising in Victoria, was involved in the first successful negligence claim for damages brought by a mesothelioma victim. This brought him into contact with Robert Vojakovic of the Perth-based Asbestos Diseases Society. The ADS had 360 former Wittenoom workers on its books who were suffering from asbestos diseases and seeking compensation from the CSR subsidiary Midalco, formerly ABA. The first case concerned former Wittenoom mill worker Wally Simpson who was suffering from asbestosis. But as Peter Gordon explains, this ultimately unsuccessful case turned out to be a gruelling legal battle, which almost ruined law firm.

Klaus Rabenault Case
After losing the Simpson case Slater & Gordon not only found itself deeply in debt but also faced criticism from both CSR and the WA State Government Insurance Office, which waged a media and public relations campaign against the firm. They accused it of falsely inflating the hopes of asbestos victims by bringing expensive cases that could never be won. However the next case to present itself in 1987 was outside the Western Australian jurisdiction and involved ex-Wittenoom worker and then Victorian resident Klaus Rabenault, now suffering from mesothelioma. As lawyer Peter Gordon explains, this gave Slater & Gordon the opportunity to run a Wittenoom asbestos case before a jury in Melbourne.

Heys and Barrow Case
The so-called Heys and Barrow case involved two former Wittenoom workers Peter Heys and Tim Barrow who were suffering from mesothelioma. Their cases were unusual as for the first time they were contending that both a company, CSR, and its subsidiary, Australian Blue Asbestos (later Midalco) bore liability for diseases that emerged many years after the worker’s original exposure. According to lawyer Peter Gordon, the success of this case made it a significant legal landmark in occupational health and safety in Australia.

The mining process was just the first stage of damaging contact with asbestos. The mineral was then manufactured into the myriad materials that helped build the houses and workplaces of postwar Australia. So with the first wave of asbestos-related diseases washing through the mining workforce, a second wave struck the manufacturing and construction workers who made or worked with asbestos products. The company which dominated asbestos manufacturing in Australia was James Hardie Industries. The battles for compensation here have been long and painful with the company to this day fighting to minimise liability.Part of the challenge in trying to establish the case for compensation in relation to asbestos-related disease has been the impenetrable nature of the company structure of James Hardie Industries. According to historian Gideon Haigh, the company most closely identified with asbestos manufacture in Australia has presented a moving target which has made it difficult to uncover a clear line of responsibility.

In the 1990s under Chief Executive Keith Bardon, James Hardie shifted its centre of operations to the United States and as a result the company culture changed, becoming more aligned with American workplace customs and practices. As historian Gideon Haigh explains, the Americans had different ways of dealing with the sorts of corporate problems posed by asbestos.

As the years passed, the structural and managerial changes had so transformed James Hardie that there were no longer any direct connections with the company’s past – beyond the workers who were continuing to suffer the legacy of their workplace exposure to asbestos so many years ago.  Historian Gideon Haigh recounts how this remoteness of the modern board from the company’s past history impacted on its attitude towards Hardie’s ongoing liabilities.

The changes in the company structure and board attitudes flowed through to the company’s approach to its asbestos liabilities. As historian Gideon Haigh explains, in the 1990s James Hardie began to change tack in its approach to litigation over compensation cases, being less inclined to settle and taking a more aggressive stance in court.

The main aim of James Hardie in the 1990s was to disguise its connection with asbestos and to minimise as much as possible its exposure to compensation claims. In 2001 the company set up the Medical Research Compensation Fund, which, far from being a vehicle for company largesse, as lawyer Peter Gordon explains.

The transformation of the James Hardie company into a global brand changed the nature of what had previously been a family-owned Australian icon. But according to historian Gideon Haigh, because it was now being governed from its new headquarters in the US, it was unaware of how its more aggressive American-style approach to its compensation problems was antagonising the Australian public.There were many factors that came together to create the public relations disaster that James Hardie faced over its approach to its asbestos liabilities. In Gideon Haigh’s view, generational change and an inward looking board influenced the capacity of the board to steer the company confidently through this turbulent period.
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Greg Combet, at that time Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, was appointed as the Carr government’s representative in the negotiations which eventually led to a successful settlement.
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