Which products contain asbestos?

My dad would come home from work covered in asbestos. My twin and I were crawling on the floor, and that dust was killing us.

I’m here because my grandfather, my father, and my brother have all died from asbestos-related diseases. They died because of their workplace.

My grandfather and my father were working together in power stations and in the mines. Management learned that it was a father-and-son relationship and actually put Dad off work, commenting that two people in the same family couldn’t work together in the same place. They knew what asbestos was, and yet they did nothing about it.

For Bert and his family, it was a question of justice. What was done to Bert was so wrong. Dad had always been a battler, so he just did the work. He trusted the people he worked for to do right by him—and they didn’t. That negligence killed Bert, his dad, and his son. It took away three generations of a family.

Han was 44 when he died. He was the first child to be diagnosed as a result of exposure at home. Dad never really recovered—he always felt that he had killed his son, and he lived with that burden for a long time. But in fact, he wasn’t the one who exposed his child; it was his workplace.

Sorry, I just need a breath.

My brother, when he was first diagnosed, was told to go and see a lawyer.

It was a really lovely meeting Bert, Tina, and the family. He loves Sue, he loves Sally. Sally is a beautiful person—caring, calm, gentle, and professional in everything she did.

We went to Maurice Blackburn because they had a “no win, no fee” policy. If there wasn’t a case, they would tell you.

Bert had a very straightforward compensation claim because, at that time, it was known to government and industry that there was no safe level of exposure to asbestos dust. And yet Bert was still being sent in to do this work. His lung cancer was the result of that negligent exposure to asbestos—something that should never have happened.

I love working with people like Bert, Wendy, and Tina. These are people who are truly deserving of compensation and justice, and I feel really privileged to help them through this process. I know Sally genuinely cares—she does it because she truly wants to help the families impacted.

We got compensation for Bert, and he was able to do what he really wanted with it, which was to take a trip with the family to Lakes Entrance. That’s really lovely to hear—that he got to do that, and it meant a lot to him in the end.

Asbestos has affected so many, and we continue to hold industries and governments to account.

If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with an asbestos-related condition, or any work-related condition, reach out to a lawyer so you know where you stand, what your options are, and your potential compensation entitlements.

I would absolutely say: go to Maurice Blackburn. They get it, they care, and they do it because they care.

So the first step when we get a call from somebody, we make the effort to go out to the house and actually see that person, sit across the table from them, get the person's life history. We'll go through what they did for work, when they worked at different places.

The second step is that we'll actually give the person some advice then and there on the day. We'll talk about any statutory no-fault entitlements. We'll also talk through potential common law entitlements that that person may or may not have.

So the third step when we see somebody is that we'll go and perform some investigations back at the office. We'll have a look into the entities who employed the person, if they were employed. We'll have a look and check to see if there's any insurance if a company is, for example, deregistered and not able to be sued directly. We will then be able to give that person some advice, hopefully, if they've got reasonable prospects of prosecuting their case.

So the fourth step is that we will actually action the person's case. We'll file proceedings, will bring the person's case in the courts, assist the person in bringing the case from the point of actually making the claim right through until a settlement event, be it something like a mediation or a conciliation conference.

Most cases will settle at the point of settlement event. Not all cases will settle at that stage and some cases will need to go to a trial. But for the most part, cases do settle at that first settlement conference, particularly if a person brings a really strong case.

And we never know whether that's going to be true or not until we actually get in and speak to the person at that first initial conference.