There was outrage when it was revealed during hearings of the ongoing NSW Special Commission of Inquiry that a special fund set up by the James Hardie company to pay its asbestos victims was $1.7 billion short of what was needed to look after many thousands of future sufferers of asbestosis and mesothelioma.
About 500 mesothelioma sufferers come forward each year and the situation is getting worse. It is estimated that another 40-60,000 cases of asbestos-related disease will appear in the next 30 years and James Hardie is estimated to be liable for compensation in 76% of these cases.
In 2001, James Hardie Industries' shareholders voted to move the company to the Netherlands. Many of its assets have since been shifted there. The company is trying to dodge its legal obligations to these thousands of victims.
ACTU secretary Greg Combet has described this as "one of the largest exercises to avoid moral and legal obligations in Australia's corporate history". The ACTU has called for the federal government to change the corporations law to prevent parent companies from shifting assets offshore when they face legal action in Australia, and to pursue a special treaty with the Netherlands to ensure that asbestos victims can pursue their rights to full compensation.
But when ALP leader Mark Latham was asked on the ABC's July 19 Lateline program if an ALP government would change the corporations law along the lines of what the ACTU is calling for, he was non-committal.
Latham also refused to commit an ALP government to urgently negotiating a treaty with the Netherlands to ensure that any court judgements made against James Hardie are enforceable in the Netherlands.
The ALP has accepted $93,000 in donations from James Hardie over the last five years. One of the public relations companies that is doing the dirty work for James Hardie in fending off the flak from this scandal also works for the ALP.
Whose side is the ALP on? Is it on the side of asbestos victims or is it on the side of corporate killers like James Hardie?
If Labor was fair dinkum about being on the side of workers, they wouldn't have to think about whether or not to change the law to prevent corporations like James Hardie protecting their assets from claims by dying workers, they'd just agree to change the law.
We know that the Howard government is hand-in-glove with the big corporations so we don't expect it to act in the interests of asbestos victims. But workers expect something better from the Labor Party. It needs to give an unequivocal commitment to change the corporations law to prevent James Hardie and other companies from avoiding their responsibilities; and to negotiate a treaty with the Netherlands.
Asbestos has been known to be a killer since the beginning of the 20th century. That means that companies should not only be paying compensation to the victims and their families, but they should also be charged with industrial manslaughter.
We're still waiting for Labor state governments to follow the lead of the ACT government and introduce industrial manslaughter legislation so that killer companies like James Hardie can be charged.
Workers need to vote the anti-worker Howard government out of office. But an ALP that isn't game to give such basic commitments to asbestos victims can't be trusted to represent the interests of workers without strong union pressure. We need independent action from the trade union movement and the biggest possible left vote in the federal election.
But we need to do more than this. The Socialist Alliance was formed to build a working-class political alternative to the ALP. The miserable treatment of victims of James Hardie's crimes by both the Coalition and the ALP is one more reason why you should help us with this ambitious but urgent political job.
[Tim Gooden is the Socialist Alliance candidate for the federal seat of Corio and assistant secretary of the Geelong Trades & Labour Council.]
Tim Gooden
From Green Left Weekly, August 4, 2004.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.