By Debbie Brennan
The survivors of an industrial disaster are now fighting for compensation and medical treatment for diseases contracted over decades.
The Baryulgil catastrophe was a creation of asbestos mining companies, which needed cheap, expendable labour earlier in this century. The labour force was the Bundjalung people, the traditional custodians of the Clarence valley, in northern NSW, until they were dispossessed by pastoralists last century.
From the early 1940s to 1979, Aboriginal miners and their community were poisoned by asbestos — which contaminated the air, food, water, ground and buildings — as they produced profits for the industry's owners.
Chrysolite (white asbestos) deposits were discovered at Baryulgil during World War I, and the Bundjalung people were put to work in the mines when operations began in the 1940s. They had the "choice" of working themselves to incapacity and death in the mines or dying in poverty under government "protection".
Asbestos dust contains microscopic fibres which scar the lining of the lungs, eventually destroying their elasticity. The three main types of asbestos diseases are asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma. The latter invariably leads to a slow and painful death.
James Hardie Industries was Australia's biggest asbestos company, cashing in on the boom in construction and automotive parts after World War II. Asbestos was in demand for brake linings and building materials. The Reid family (owners of James Hardie) and mining magnate Lang Hancock made fortunes mining and marketing this deadly substance.
The Aboriginal miners of Baryulgil had no protection from the white asbestos dust, which often blanketed the mine and surrounds like a blizzard. Former miner Neil Walker testified that the dust was constantly visible in the air. Ken Gordon, another ex-miner, described work on the surface at the mine: "At times when you are shoveling [asbestos] into the bags, you can't see the bloke that's holding the bag open for you, it's that dusty."
There were no washing facilities, so the miners took the dust home with them. Baryulgil was a company town, and James Hardie provided materials for the squalid tin sheds and tents, the gravel roads, the school and the "sandpit" in which the children played — all of it contaminated with asbestos. The community had no electricity or sewerage, and the only source of water was the asbestos-contaminated creek.
The company knew that less than a month's exposure to asbestos dust could be fatal, but its representatives told the miners that the dust affected only white people. For their labour, which would eventually e miners were paid below-award wages and subjected to a harsh regime.
James Hardie now says it's not liable. However, two legal victories for asbestos victims in 1988 — one in Western Australia and another in Victoria — place the company on shaky ground. Also in 1988, former employees founded the NSW Ex-Miners' Asbestos Aboriginal Corporation to fight a compensation case. A victory for the Baryulgil community would mean a colossal pay-out.
The law and the courts, predictably, obstructed the claim. So far the only instance of compensation was in 1969: $3000 to Ruby Mundine, wife of Cyril Mundine, who died after working 22 years for James Hardie. The court accepted the company's claim that this was all it could afford, even though JHI had just declared a pre-tax profit of more than $15 million (the Reid family's holding in the company was more than $57 million).
In a 1984 report, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs found JHI negligent and recommended "that the Attorneys General of the Commonwealth and New South Wales consider ways and means whereby the technical difficulties presented by Aboriginality in seeking compensation may be removed". The response of both governments was erect further obstacles.
In its fight for compensation, the community finds itself battling the clock with almost no resources. Each time a victim dies, the company wins a round in its attempt to avoid compensation.
Charles Moran, a former miner suffering from asbestosis, says when former miners consulted local doctors, "the report was always the same: if you drank it was alcohol-related; if you smoked, smoke was the cause of death. It was because we were black." In stark contrast, the Department of Defence announced last September that it will provide free medical examinations for all its former workers who might have asbestos-related problems.
Since its foundation, the Ex-Miners' Corporation has had to fight alone, except for the support of the also hard-pressed Asbestos Diseases Society of Western Australia, which after a long fight won a landmark case for compensation of former miners at Wittenoom.
Charles Moran says the former workers' union, the notoriously bureaucratic AWU, won't help, and even the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) has refused to provide financial assistance for a community development worker and an office to pursue the compensation claim.
Without funding, the community finds it difficult to gather evidence and prepare a legal case. The ex-miners' group can't even afford a filing cabinet, telephone bills or assistance with the cost of visits to doctors in distant Sydney and Newcastle, let alone counselling of asbestos victims and monitoring of many other legal and medical complexities.
The ex-miners are currently gathering medical evidence necessary for s Society to represent them in a compensation action against James Hardie. They need support, including messages to ATSIC supporting the corporation's submission for funding.
Messages and donations may be sent to the NSW Asbestos Ex-Miners' Aboriginal Corporation, 23 Norwood Ave, Goonellabah NSW 2480. Letters supporting the ex-miners' submission may be sent to Ian Watson, Regional Director, ATSIC, Level 2, 75 Magellan St, Lismore NSW 2480 or the ATSIC Commissioner, 234 Sussex St, Sydney 2000. Please send copies of letters to the Ex-Miners Corporation.