Unions pressure Costello over Hardie compo tax break

ALAN KOHLER: One way or another, it looks like a law will be passed next week to make James Hardie fund all future asbestos claims. The New South Wales Government is pledging to put a Bill to Parliament on Tuesday which will either reflect a signed agreement or the more unpalatable option, retrospective legislation to bring Hardie's assets back from overseas. Hardie, meanwhile, says the deal is dependent on being given tax concessions for compensation. That's a proposition that’s supported by unions, but it's infuriating the Treasurer, Peter Costello. Stephen Long reports.
STEPHEN LONG: It's a month before Christmas, and in the Hollis household you can't hold back the joy of 3-year-old Katie and 9-year-old Tara. But there's a shadow hanging over Christmas for this family from Blacktown in Sydney's working class west. The shadow of mesothelioma, the terrible cancer caused by asbestos.
MARK HOLLIS: When I was 13 years old I was helping my dad doing renovations on a house, and that was all asbestos, sweeping it up, put the sheets up, because my dad had polio at the time.
STEPHEN LONG: Mark Hollis well remembers the label on that asbestos fibro.
MARK HOLLIS: James Hardie. It had no writing on it to say it's poison, or anything like that. No dangerous, all that stuff.
STEPHEN LONG: In May last year he went to the doctor, thinking he had a cold. Within weeks he had radical surgery.
MARK HOLLIS: They just removed my lung. They've done whole renovations on my insides here. They put a new cortex in and it just feels like a piece of plastic there and it's just painful, all the time.
STEPHEN LONG: On Monday morning the Hollises joined a protest outside James Hardie's Sydney headquarters, demanding the company finalise a long-promised compensation deal for thousands who will die from exposure to its products.
BERNIE BANTON: They don't really give a stuff about people. All they care about is their bottom line.
STEPHEN LONG: Hours later came this ultimatum from the New South Wales Premier: Cough up within days, James Hardie, or we'll legislate to make you pay.
MORRIS IEMA: We hope that that legislation will reflect an agreement, but if it doesn't, there is legislation which has been drafted to provide access to the funds to re-establish access to some $1.9 billion in those partly-paid shares in the holding company. We will introduce legislation to re-establish access to those.
STEPHEN LONG: And that means retrospective legislation to reinstate shares that were cancelled by James Hardie. Some $1.9 billion in partly-paid shares, held by the Australian subsidiary, left behind when James Hardie moved its holding company offshore to the Netherlands.
PROFESSOR IAN RAMSAY: In my opinion it would actually be unprecedented to, in a sense, have major legislation by a State Government overturn a transaction that, going back to 2001, was approved by the New South Wales Supreme Court.
STEPHEN LONG: But that court approval came after false assurances by James Hardie that the $1.9 billion would be available to meet all future claims, providing a financial lifeline to asbestos victims and their families. Even so, experts say the New South Wales plan is risky.
PROFESSOR IAN RAMSAY: I think that if the legislation was to proceed, we could very confidently predict that it would be challenged by James Hardie.
STEPHEN LONG: It's a risk the ACTU says it's prepared to take.
GREG COMBET: It's minutes to midnight. This has been given a lot of time. The company's had every opportunity to come to grips with what's being asked of it, and if we can't do this deal in coming days, we are going to pull up stumps, call this process to a halt, in partnership with the New South Wales Government, and before the New South Wales Parliament rises, which is on 2 December, we will be urging the New South Wales Government to put hostile legislation through the Parliament designed to unravel the James Hardie restructuring.
STEPHEN LONG: And the campaign will go global.
WAYNE PEPPARD: My stepfather died of mesothelioma-related disease last year and he was actually a tank officer.
STEPHEN LONG: Wayne Peppard heads the building unions in the Canadian province of British Columbia.
WAYNE PEPPARD: Myself, I'm a plumber and I've been exposed many times over my 35 years in the trade. So I'm a little concerned myself about getting checked out.
STEPHEN LONG: He's been over here speaking to building workers about James Hardie. He's promising a boycott that will hit Hardies where it hurts, the big North American market, where it makes 80 per cent of its sales.
WAYNE PEPPARD: We will initiate a campaign that will be aimed at James Hardie as a company and all of their products, wherever they're used on sites or wherever they're brought through the ports.
STEPHEN LONG: Starting with $86 billion of building work in British Columbia alone.
WAYNE PEPPARD: Well, we'll be looking for a ban on the use of their products on that share of that $86 billion, and that's going to flow right across North America.
STEPHEN LONG: It seems unthinkable that this blue chip would make itself a pariah by breaking its promise of full compensation. But even at the 11th hour it's been haggling. Last week James Hardie sought protection from future claims for remediation of land riddled with asbestos, or removal of asbestos from fibro homes.
GREG COMBET: James Hardie are keen to try and get rid of those other forms of liability that may be there and also to limit the scope of the personal injury compensation. So we're constantly battling over those things with the company and they came back and tried to open things up on that front again quite recently, which is thoroughly inappropriate.
STEPHEN LONG: If a deal is signed, there's still a tax hurdle to be overcome. The company wants to write off the billions it will pay in compensation against tax. But it has a problem. James Hardie claims it moved offshore to cut its tax burden. The irony is that move offshore could now stop it getting tax concessions on any compensation deal. In a further irony, the ACTU boss is backing tax breaks for James Hardie, but not the pro-business Treasurer.
PETER COSTELLO: The company is now facing up to its obligations in relation to compensation to poor people who are dying, who are dying, and their relatives. It will not be given special treatment, this company, under the corporations law or under the tax law. It will abide by the law.
GREG COMBET: If, at the end of the day, the New South Wales Government, the union movement and the asbestos victims groups have an agreement with James Hardie, and all that's standing between those asbestos victims and their compensation over the next 50 or 60 years is the Treasurer, let's see how he stands up to that pressure.
STEPHEN LONG: James Hardie is insisting that any compensation deal exempt it from civil penalty orders, which could stop ASIC from having directors or former executives fined or banned, and that won't please Peter Costello.
PETER COSTELLO: The civil penalty laws should apply both to Hardies and its directors.
STEPHEN LONG: Yet it now seems almost certain that even Hardies most trenchant critics will acquiesce to this get-out clause.
BERNIE BANTON: What they've done, as far as I'm concerned, is criminal, and I'm sure that they can still be charged under criminal law.
STEPHEN LONG: But that won't be so easy, and to Mark Hollis that's a travesty of justice.
MARK HOLLIS: It's just like shooting someone and getting away with it. It's disgusting. No good.
STEPHEN LONG: But a legally-binding compensation deal would give this man and hundreds like him some Christmas cheer.
MARK HOLLIS: I reckon they should just pull their finger out. Like, they promised to pay the whole lot, they should do it. None of this playing games sort of thing. They should just do it. Don't wait for the end of this week. Pay up right now, sign up. That's it.

Don't Let Me Die In Vain, Mother's plea to politicans

A DYING mother of nine-year-old triplets is pleading with the state's MPs to pass legislation this week so that her children and others can receive compensation.Asbestos victim Melissa Haylock's only wish before she dies is to know her children will be looked after when she's gone.
But time is running out for Mrs Haylock, 42, of Lockleys, because there are only four parliamentary sitting days left to get the Dust Diseases Bill through.
If passed, the Bill would allow Mrs Haylock's triplets access to damages for the loss of their mother, who has the deadly asbestos-related lung cancer, mesothelioma.
If it doesn't, Parliament will rise on Thursday and is not due to sit until after the March state election.
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Experts say Mrs Haylock, diagnosed with mesothelioma 11 months ago, is lucky to still be alive.
"This is about my children and others in similar situations. It's not about the money," Mrs Haylock said yesterday.
Mrs Haylock, who was exposed to asbestos as a child when her father was carrying out home renovations, said she hoped to defy statistics, but also had to be prepared for reality.
"I pray I will live longer . . . but if I die next year, my children will be 10. What will happen to my kids?"
Mrs Haylock has a compensation claim for damages in the Supreme Court but, unless the law is changed, her children will not be compensated for losing their mother.
She said all she wanted was to know was that her children - Imogen, Molly and Ethan - would be cared for without her.
Her husband, Garry, 45, is a fireman and often works nightshifts.
As well as allowing children to be compensated under their parents' claims, the Bill, introduced by No Pokies MLC Nick Xenophon, would also fast-track claims and bring damages payouts in SA in line with other states. Victims in SA can receive as little as half the damages payouts of victims in other states.
The Government and Opposition have both expressed support for the "principle" of the Bill, but are yet to finalise their positions.
Asbestos Victims Association SA secretary Terry Miller echoed calls for the Bill to be passed urgently.
"One of the big things that (mesothelioma sufferers) tell me is that they really want a claim settled so they can know their family will be looked after. It's really not too much to ask, is it?" he said.

Law Firm Welcomes Publication of Major new Research into Occupational Cancer Epidemic

Britain is facing a cancer epidemic that is killing 50 people every day which has been almost entirely missed in official statistics says a new survey by Hazards Magazine and the TUC which calls for an urgent and fully resourced public health response.
(PRWEB) November 27, 2005 -- Britain is facing a cancer epidemic that is killing 50 people every day which has been almost entirely missed in official statistics says a new survey by Hazards Magazine and the TUC which calls for an urgent and fully resourced public health response. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) says that just four per cent of the UK's annual cancer death toll (one in three people in the UK will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, one in four will die from it) is as a result of exposure to carcinogens at work, which it says is equal to 6,000 deaths a year.However, the 'Burying the evidence' report by Hazards, the TUC-backed health and safety magazine, concludes that the incidence of occupational cancer in the UK is much higher, and suggests that it is between 12,000 and 24,000 deaths a year (the equivalent of 16 per cent of all cancer deaths in the UK).Jonathan Kay died in August 2005 at the age of 40. Shortly before his death, he had learned his employer, Kelda Group plc - formerly Yorkshire Water Authority - had admitted liability for the asbestos cancer that was to kill him. Four months before his death from mesothelioma, a cruel and invariably fatal asbestos cancer, he said: "There was a level of dust that you could see in the air. You could taste it in your mouth." Mr Kay said his employers never gave him protective equipment, even though the government had introduced strict regulations regarding the use of asbestos some 20 years previously.His solicitor Paul Webber of national law firm Irwin Mitchell said: "Jonathan fought hard for justice for himself, but most importantly for him, for his young family. Despite clearly being in extreme pain, he continued in his quest... Although Jonathan did not live to receive the compensation, he died secure in the knowledge that his family would be protected." Jonathan Kay is one of a new generation of younger workers succumbing to asbestos cancers. Barry Welch was just 32 when he died of the asbestos cancer mesothelioma in April 2005, his death the result of a cancer which until recently was assumed to be a disease of old age. His exposure to the fatal fibre is thought to have occurred in childhood, caused by dust on his stepfather's work clothing. Mr Welch's inquest will be taking place on the 14th December in Leicester.Neither Jonathan nor Barry had spent years in highly polluted heavy industry. They form part of an emerging epidemic which authorities failed to spot and, for the new generation of workplace killers, are doing precious little to prevent.Irwin Mitchell have joined with the TUC and Hazards Magazine in calling for the real level of occupational cancers to be recognised and for urgent action to be undertaken on behalf of the government for more safeguards for those people exposed to hazardous materials, and for the full range of these hazards to be recognised.

Legal win for dust disease victims

TASMANIA'S asbestosis victims have scored a major legal victory after three years of fighting.And the Beulah man who led the fight is relieved the families of those who die from dust- related diseases will now be looked after. This week, Attorney-General Judy Jackson tabled legislation which will give families the right to recover damages for pain and suffering if the victim of a dust- related disease dies before the courts finalise their case."In the past, lawyers would hold off and drag cases out just waiting for the victim to die," Asbestos Diseases Tasmania president Laurie Appleby said on Thursday."A friend of mine found out he had mesothelioma in October last year and died on New Year's Eve. That's how fast it happens and the families were left with nothing and no legal claim."Mr Appleby said between 20 and 30 Tasmanian families would benefit from the new rules."I haven't had any feedback from the Government. I didn't even know this had happened until you rang," he said."But it is good news to get after campaigning for change for three long years - it certainly has been a battle."Tasmania's asbestos disease sufferers won a compensation law victory in January and they needed more legal change to give those new rules some teeth.Up to 100 Tasmanian asbestos victims are seeking compensation and changes to the Limitations Act (which removed the six-year deadline on claims) have allowed them to do so.However, a pain and suffering exclusion meant victims often died before their claims moved through the courts, leaving their families without recourse.The symptoms of asbestosis and other asbestos-related illnesses sometimes do not appear for 40 years, but the disease can claim the lives of victims within six months of being diagnosed.Mr Appleby is a former Goliath Cement Works employee and he has led the fight for Tasmanian victims to have the same rights as their mainland counterparts.Mr Appleby said the Goliath works at Railton had produced all the asbestos products in Tasmania from the 1930s until the 1980s and 90 per cent of the people who are now able to make a claim were former cement works employees.Ms Jackson said Tasmania was the only State where the pain and suffering component of a damages claim disappeared when the victim died."We did not think this was fair," Ms Jackson said."Dust-related conditions, such as mesothelioma, generally have a long latency period."The amendment will help relieve the pressure on sick and dying plaintiffs to push ahead with litigation as quickly as possible. At the same time, it will remove any incentive for defendants to drag out legal proceedings unnecessarily."

Female asbestos deaths spike near old factory

The Yomiuri Shimbun
The death rate from mesothelioma, a cancer caused by exposure to asbestos, was 18.1 times the national average among females living within a 500-meter radius of Kubota Corp.'s Kanzaki factory in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, which produced building materials containing asbestos.
The finding was made by a group of researchers at Nara Medical University headed by Prof. Norio Kurumatani. It also showed that the death rate from mesothelioma was 9.8 times the national average among male residents living in the same area.
Kurumatani said since few women worked at factories and the number of mesothelioma deaths included work-related cases, the death rate for women reflects the severe health hazard posed to residents in the area.
According to the survey released at a Japanese Society of Occupational Medicine and Traumatology meeting in Osaka on Wednesday, men and women in the area were 11.7 times more likely to die from mesothelioma than the national average.
Kurumatani said there were no other likely mesothelioma sources than the former factory, adding that it was presumed that the development of mesothelioma among the residents resulted from the dispersal of highly toxic blue asbestos used in the former factory.
Of the victims and patients suffering from mesothelioma whose cases were on file at the Kansai Occupational Safety and Health Center in Chuo Ward, Osaka, the researchers examined 85 cases in which there were no records of the person working at a factory or other asbestos-related facilities.
The 85 people included 76 who died of mesothelioma.
The 85 people had lived in the area for 1-1/2 years to 18-1/2 years, and their incubation periods for the disease ranged from 23 years to 48 years.
The 76 victims died aged 26 to 87.

Mesothelioma.com web site comes out swinging against proposed asbestos bill.

Please provide any information you think may be helpful to mesothelioma victimd and their families
Mesothelioma.com today announced its opposition to the asbestos bill soon to come before the House and Senate. Mesothelioma.com believes the bill is severely flawed and hurts the victims, while bailing out the very Corporations who have been lobbying for this bill for years.
(I-Newswire) - Mesothelioma.com today announced its dissenting opinion on the recent asbestos bill soon to come before congress. Mesothelioma.com has reviewed the recent asbestos bill proposed by Sen. Arlen Spector and Sen. Patrick Leahy and has come out strongly against the proposed bill. We believe the bill is unworkable, under-funded, and unconstitutional. While legislation proposed in Washington, D.C., by Pennsylvania Senator, Arlen Specter, on its face seems to allay many issues regarding litigation over asbestos-related disease, the Asbestos Bill actually raises impossible hurdles for victims and bails out politically well-connected corporations.Senator Specter acknowledges that he can’t pass a ‘perfect’ bill, but offers little solace to the mesothelioma victims who’ll die before they see any help from the fundamentally flawed asbestos bailout bill approved by the Judiciary Committee.Every major asbestos victims’ organization opposes this bill, while being supported by the corporate defendants who knowingly poisoned their workers and the public with asbestos and would receive billions of dollars in liability relief.A few of the fundamental problems with the fund include:• The fund is under-funded by at least $16 billion ( according to the CBO ) and possibly as much as $49 billion ( analysis by asbestos claims expert Mark Peterson ) or even $100 billion ( Environmental Working Group ). Bankruptcy of the fund and taxpayer bailout is likely.• Every single similar government trust fund has failed.• In its current form the fund will immediately be mired in litigation from existing asbestos trusts, insurance companies, small businesses, and the thousands of http://www.mesothelioma.com">Mesothelioma victims unfairly excluded from the fund.• By moving all pending claims into the fund, the fund is guaranteed to have a huge backlog at startup.• Victims with community exposure and 9/11 victims – even firefighters, police, and emergency workers – are barred from receiving any compensation. The disparity between their treatment and the treatment of similar victims in Libby, Montana is likely unconstitutional.• There is no real sunset process for victims to return to the courts when the fund becomes bankrupt.• While treating unfairly or shutting out those poisoned by asbestos, the companies that poisoned them are rewarded with a multi-billion dollar bailout.Mesothelioma.com plans to inform its readers on the progress of the bill in the senate and the house, throughout the month of January. More information about the bill can be found at http://www.mesothelioma.com . Call your local Senator or Congressman and let them know you oppose bill S.852.Http://www.mesothelioma.comEthan EarlyIf you have questions regarding information in this press release contact the company listed below. I-Newswire.com is a press release service and not the author of this press release. The information that is on or available through this site is for informational purposes only and speaks only as of the particular date or dates of that information. As some companies / PR Agencies submit their press releases once per week/month or quarter, make sure check the official company website for accurate release dates as our site displays the I-Newswire.com distribution date only. We do not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of information on or available through this site, and we are not responsible for inaccuracies or omissions in that information or for actions taken in reliance on that information.

EHSO finds asbestos in BOP van

University investigating source of material By Dominic ColacurcioKa Leo News EditorNovember 23, 2005 The University of Hawai'i at Manoa's Environmental Health and Safety Office has found traces of asbestos in the van used this weekend to clean out the Ka Leo press building. The van is normally used to deliver Ka Leo O Hawai'i to spots around the Manoa campus.
Last weekend, a crew headed by Board of Publications member Ross Kamakahi used the van to deposit materials from the press building in dumpsters around campus. Most of the dumpsters they used were emptied by disposal services before they could be checked for asbestos. EHSO found no traces of asbestos in the dumpsters that were not emptied.
EHSO is still investigating to determine where the asbestos came from. EHSO Director Roy Takekawa said the material didn't look like it was part of the building, and that it might have come from a piece of equipment that was removed.
The press building contains three Linotype machines, which use asbestos for insulation. These machines have not been in use since 1978, according to Coordinator for Student Publications Jim Reis.
An outside company has been contracted to clean the van of asbestos, according to Takekawa. In the meantime, the press staff is using a Campus Services pickup truck to deliver Ka Leo issues.
Asbestos Facts
Asbestos describes any of a group of fibrous metamorphic minerals of the hydrous magnesium silicate variety. The name is derived for its historical use in lamp wicks; the resistance of asbestos to fire has long been exploited for a variety of purposes.
As early as 1898, the Chief Inspector of Factories of the United Kingdom reported to Parliament in his Annual Report about the "evil effects of asbestos dust."
Most respirable asbestos fibers are invisible to the unaided human eye because of their small size.
The fine asbestos fibers are easily inhaled, and can cause a number of respiratory complaints, including a potentially serious lung fibrosis called asbestosis. Exposure to asbestos has also been determined to cause a very serious form of cancer, mesothelioma, that occurs in the chest and abdominal cavities.
When inhaled, asbestos is carcinogenic. In the United States alone, it is estimated that ten thousand people die each year of asbestos-related diseases, such as mesothelioma, asbestosis, lung cancer and gastrointestinal cancer. Asbestos has a synergistic effect with tobacco smoking in the causation of lung cancer.

Mesothelioma.com web site comes out swinging against proposed asbestos bill.

Mesothelioma.com today announced its opposition to the asbestos bill soon to come before the House and Senate. Mesothelioma.com believes the bill is severely flawed and hurts the victims, while bailing out the very Corporations who have been lobbying for this bill for years.
(I-Newswire) - Mesothelioma.com today announced its dissenting opinion on the recent asbestos bill soon to come before congress. Mesothelioma.com has reviewed the recent asbestos bill proposed by Sen. Arlen Spector and Sen. Patrick Leahy and has come out strongly against the proposed bill. We believe the bill is unworkable, under-funded, and unconstitutional. While legislation proposed in Washington, D.C., by Pennsylvania Senator, Arlen Specter, on its face seems to allay many issues regarding litigation over asbestos-related disease, the Asbestos Bill actually raises impossible hurdles for victims and bails out politically well-connected corporations.Senator Specter acknowledges that he can’t pass a ‘perfect’ bill, but offers little solace to the mesothelioma victims who’ll die before they see any help from the fundamentally flawed asbestos bailout bill approved by the Judiciary Committee.Every major asbestos victims’ organization opposes this bill, while being supported by the corporate defendants who knowingly poisoned their workers and the public with asbestos and would receive billions of dollars in liability relief.A few of the fundamental problems with the fund include:• The fund is under-funded by at least $16 billion ( according to the CBO ) and possibly as much as $49 billion ( analysis by asbestos claims expert Mark Peterson ) or even $100 billion ( Environmental Working Group ). Bankruptcy of the fund and taxpayer bailout is likely.• Every single similar government trust fund has failed.• In its current form the fund will immediately be mired in litigation from existing asbestos trusts, insurance companies, small businesses, and the thousands of http://www.blogger.com/">Mesothelioma victims unfairly excluded from the fund.• By moving all pending claims into the fund, the fund is guaranteed to have a huge backlog at startup.• Victims with community exposure and 9/11 victims – even firefighters, police, and emergency workers – are barred from receiving any compensation. The disparity between their treatment and the treatment of similar victims in Libby, Montana is likely unconstitutional.• There is no real sunset process for victims to return to the courts when the fund becomes bankrupt.• While treating unfairly or shutting out those poisoned by asbestos, the companies that poisoned them are rewarded with a multi-billion dollar bailout.Mesothelioma.com plans to inform its readers on the progress of the bill in the senate and the house, throughout the month of January. More information about the bill can be found at http://www.mesothelioma.com/ . Call your local Senator or Congressman and let them know you oppose bill S.852.http://www.mesothelioma.com/Ethan EarlyIf you have questions regarding information in this press release contact the company listed below. I-Newswire.com is a press release service and not the author of this press release. The information that is on or available through this site is for informational purposes only and speaks only as of the particular date or dates of that information. As some companies / PR Agencies submit their press releases once per week/month or quarter, make sure check the official company website for accurate release dates as our site displays the I-Newswire.com distribution date only. We do not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of information on or available through this site, and we are not responsible for inaccuracies or omissions in that information or for actions taken in reliance on that information.