Australia has its own history of asbestos mining and manufacturing that can rival that of the United States. It also has a history of asbestos exposure and resultant illness that at the moment, surpasses the level of illness in the United States. The chief corporate player in the story is the James Hardie Corporation, a firm based in the Netherlands that mined asbestos in Australia through the late twentieth century.
To this day, James Hardie specializes in cement fiber products. The first and most famous fiber to be utilized with cement was asbestos, and the James Hardie Corporation had four plants in Australia that manufactured a number of asbestos products. The most famous, or infamous product was Fibro, an asbestos-laced cement product that could be compressed into rigid sheets. It was used for building siding and roofing throughout the nation.
The Australians who mined asbestos for James Hardie and those who worked in the four plants were victims of workplace exposure that has taken its toll. But the manufacture of construction materials – pipes and foundation material as well as Fibro – caused asbestos exposure throughout the Australian building trades. Today, Hardie is cast as the principal villain in a nation where asbestos exposure has become a highly visible issue.
About 600 Australians are diagnosed each year with mesothelioma. Many times that number are developing asbestosis and other respiratory diseases. Australia is a nation of about 21 million people, while the U.S. has a population of just over 300 million. Two to three thousand cases of malignant mesothelioma are diagnosed in the U.S. each year. Australia is currently seeing a diagnosis rate three times that of the United States.
The Hardie company has reached a settlement of sorts with the Australian government, agreeing to contribute 35% of its annual cash flow to a national Asbestos Injury Compensation Fund. But while asbestos related illness continues to increase in Australia, the James Hardie Corporation has announced that due to the economic downturn, its funding for compensation may not meet the demand for 2010.
It’s difficult to say what the total exposure for James Hardie may be, or when the occurrence of asbestos related diseases may peak in Australia. But the amount of Fibro products still in residential use guarantees that exposure will continue. And the Australian experience raises questions about what will happen to the hundreds of thousands of Indian citizens who are currently buying asbestos cement products with which to assemble homes. In India, asbestos products are still legal.
