Public Health

29 November 2011: State schools have recorded a massive spike in asbestos incidents as the Education Department faces more compensation claims from staff who fear they have been exposed.

30 November 2010: Matt Peacock has been covering the asbestos story for decades and says he just gets cranky when people lie about it. (audio)

10 December 2010: One of the State Government’s most controversial school initiatives has been thrown into chaos, with hundreds of students set to start classes on a temporary site next year because of an asbestos bungle.

17 December 2010: A report into QBuild’s handling of asbestos at a north Queensland school has found it failed to follow the appropriate decontamination process.

18 December 2010: A former pre-school teacher who has just found out she has terminal mesothelioma wants to warn ex-staff and children from a Brisbane pre-school that they also were exposed to deadly asbestos in 1983.

25 January 2011: Authorities are investigating the inappropriate disposal of asbestos in a remote Northern Territory Aboriginal community, under the Federal Government’s Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program.

27 January 2011: The New South Wales Government has pledged $6.3 million for remediation work at the Woodsreef asbestos mine, in the state’s north west.

31 January 2011: Bungled renovations have exposed teachers and education staff to potentially lethal asbestos fibres in schools across the state. In one high school, staff members complained of “chest discomfort and breathing difficulties” after coming into contact with material containing asbestos

13 March 2011: Surfers claim deadly asbestos littering Victoria’s most famous beach is the result of a Surf Coast Shire cover-up gone wrong.

17 March 2011: Locals of the south Perth suburb of Wattleup are outraged at the discovery of asbestos at a waste site where operations have continued by an unlicensed company. (video)